Journal Article Reports on New Software Research Utilized to Calculate Heat Flux
The HFITS: An Analysis Tool for Calculating Heat Flux to Planar Surfaces using Infrared Thermography peer-reviewed journal article has been published in the SoftwareX journal. The article was authored by the Fire Safety Research Institute (FSRI), part of UL Research Institutes researchers, including Parham Dehghani, postdoctoral researcher, and Matthew J DiDomizio, lead research engineer. Key findings from this study supports the Heat Transfer and Fire Damage Patterns on Walls for Fire Model Validation research project.
This study aimed to create a software that can measure heat flux over planar surfaces using infrared thermography, which will aid researchers within thermal engineering disciplines. This software will be used in experiments where thermal exposure is over a two-dimensional surface.
The primary objectives of this software include:
- Extensive functionalities
- Metadata handling
- A graphical interface for selection of regions of interest
- The capacity to import additional temperature measurements which can be used to enhance convective heat transfer estimates
- The exporting of both computed field data and contour videos
This software expands access to a variety of experimental and analytical techniques in thermal analyses for a range of engineering and research applications. This work is a key development in thermal analysis research as it allows for parallel development. Prior to this research, researchers analyzed heat flux cases individually.
Conclusions
HFITS is comprehensive in its functionalities, user-friendly interface, and wide-ranging applications- which establishes it as an indispensable tool for researchers, engineers, and educators. This project continues active development, and in the future will have additional features and cases to advance its use in thermal engineering and fire safety research.
“HFITS was initially created for the NIJ-Heat Flux Patterns project as part of my collaboration in developing tools for analyzing heat flux in complex fire scenarios. Originally written in Matlab, it was later expanded into Python, adding a graphical interface and additional functionalities. This tool translates temperature measurements into heat flux estimates through energy conservation principle, handling inverse heat transfer calculations for high-precision thermal analysis. While it’s currently central to fire safety experiments, specifically analyzing heat exposure in EV fire experiments, HFITS is designed as a general-purpose tool adaptable to various thermal engineering disciplines, scales, and applications.”
— Parham Dehghani, post-doctoral researcher, FSRI
Read the peer-reviewed journal article:
This research was supported by Award No. 15PNIJ-21-GG-04167-RESS, from the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication/program /exhibition are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of Justice.
Abstract:
HFITS is a software tool that supports experimental measurements of heat flux over planar surfaces using infrared thermography. This technique enables spatially and temporally resolved heat flux measurements at a higher resolution than arrays of traditional point sensors. The target audience is researchers and engineers in thermal engineering disciplines (i.e., any discipline that involves heat transfer measurements). Developed in Python with a graphical front end, the software is accessible both to advanced users as well as to users with a more fundamental knowledge of complex thermogram manipulation and heat transfer analysis methods. HFITS consists of two main components: pre-processing of infrared thermograms (obtained from heat transfer experiments), and inverse heat transfer analysis (to deduce heat flux over the planar surface in those experiments). The software offers comprehensive functionalities, including support for custom thermogram formats, metadata handling, a graphical interface for selection of regions of interest, the ability to import additional temperature measurements to enhance convective heat transfer estimates, and the exporting of both computed field data and contour videos. This open-source software broadens access to advanced experimental and analytical techniques to support thermal analyses in a wide range of engineering and research applications.
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