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The purpose of this paper is to propose a simplified representation of the fire load in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to represent the effect of large-scale travelling fire and to highlight the relevance of such an approach whilst coupling the CFD results with finite element method (FEM) to evaluate related steel temperatures, comparing the numerical outcomes with experimental measurements.

This paper presents the setup of the CFD simulations (FDS software), its corresponding assumptions and the calibration via two natural fire tests whilst focusing on gas temperatures and on steel temperatures measured on a central column. For the latter, two methods are presented: one based on EN 1993-1-2 and another linking CFD and FEM (SAFIR^® software).

This paper suggests that such an approach can allow for an acceptable representation of the travelling fire both in terms of fire spread and steel temperatures. The inevitable limitations inherent to the simplifications made during the CFD simulations are also discussed. Regarding steel temperatures, the two methods lead to quite similar results, but with the ones obtained via CFD–FEM coupling are closer to those measured.

This work has revealed that the proposed simplified representation of the fire load appears to be appropriate to evaluate the temperature of steel structural elements within reasonable limits on computational time, making it potentially desirable for practical applications. This paper also presents the first comparisons of FDS–SAFIR^® coupling with experimental results, highlighting promising outcomes.

This paper aims to describe the development of a knowledge management system (KMS) for the Nadir and Occultation for Mars Discovery (NOMAD) instrument on board the ESA/Roscosmos 2016 ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) spacecraft. The KMS collects knowledge acquired during the engineering process that involved over 30 project partners. In addition to the documentation and technical data (explicit knowledge), a dedicated effort was made to collect the gained experience (tacit knowledge) that is crucial for the operational phase of the TGO mission and also for future projects. The system is now in service and provides valuable information for the scientists and engineers working with NOMAD.

The NOMAD KMS was built around six areas: official documentation, technical specifications and test results, lessons learned, management data (proposals, deliverables, progress reports and minutes of meetings), picture files and movie files. Today, the KMS contains 110 GB of data spread over 11,000 documents and more than 13,000 media files. A computer-aided design (CAD) library contains a model of the full instrument as well as exported sub-parts in different formats. A context search engine for both documents and media files was implemented.

The conceived KMS design is basic, flexible and very robust. It can be adapted to future projects of a similar size.

The paper provides practical guidelines on how to retain the knowledge from a larger aerospace project. The KMS tool presented here works offline, requires no maintenance and conforms to data protection standards.

This paper shows how knowledge management requirements for space missions can be fulfilled. The paper demonstrates how to transform the large collection of project data into a useful tool and how to address usability aspects.