Structure of the Database

The MaCFP database is organized around specific phenomena or unit problems in fire physics. Each problem has a directory at the root level of the database. And each problem is assigned task leaders to gather and present the available target experimental data. The database structure for a given problem is ultimately the choice of the task leaders. But below we provide a suggested structure, which we followed in setting up the Extinction benchmarks.

.
+---Buoyant_Plumes
+---Extinction
|   +---UMD_Line_Burner
|       +---Computational_Results
|       +---Documentation
|       |   +---LaTeX_Source
|       +---Experimental_Data
|       +---Plots
|       +---Processing_Scripts
+---Gaseous_Pool_Fires
+---Liquid_Pool_Fires
+---Utilities
+---Wall_Fires

Under a unit problem we have directories for each experiment. Let's look at the UMD_Line_Burner experiment.

Computational_Results

This is an empty directory that will be used to store submissions for computational results locally. The processing scripts (discussed below) will have relative paths already set up to look in this directory for computational results.

Documentation

This directory should have a one to two page abstract of the experimental setup and computational targets for the experiment. Did you measure gas temperature or thermocouple temperature? If thermocouples were used, give details of the measurements (material, size, emissivity, etc.). Put yourself in the modelers shoes, what information would you need to model this experiment. Make sure this information is in the documentation.

Ideally, the documents will be provided as LaTeX source files stored in the LaTeX_Source directory. Here put any images (.png, .pdf, etc.) that are required to build the pdf for the documentation.

IMPORTANT: Put BibTeX references to any papers in the /macfp-db/Utilities/macfp_refs.bib file (discussed below). This will make life easy for those who wish to cite the work done by this workshop.

Experimental_Data

This is the life blood of the database, your experimental data. This needs to be stored in simple comma-delimited, ascii text files. Use one or two lines for column headers. Make column labels short but descriptive and unique. The same with names of the data files.

DO NOT dump your raw 1000 channel LabView file. Files should be no more than 10-20 columns. If the data is not clear from the filenames and column headers, provide a README.txt file in the Experimental_Data folder to help the modelers understand what it meant by the data. Ultimately, we want to be able to run the processing scripts provided to plot the experimental data (even without computational results). So, the simpler you make the data files, the easier it will be to write the processing scripts. Think in terms of being able to regenerate all the plots you put in a paper, for example.