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Research and Applied Technology
Fuel-Fired Room Heating Products
This project will research fires associated with all types of room heating products including fireplaces (both wood burning and gas), vented and un-vented gas room heaters, fireplace inserts, venting and flue materials, and coal and wood pellet stoves.
This report addresses risk versus benefit issues associated with the installation of residential fire sprinkler systems. A primary objective of this assessment is to rate the risk of potable water contamination from a residential sprinkler system.
This research project will characterize water sprinkler distribution under ceilings with a slope of 60 degrees or less and develop guidelines for sprinkler spacing. It will involve live fire testing using a test facility representative of a living room with a cathedral ceiling that can be adjusted for various slopes. This effort will be of interest because there are many residential and other type of structures throughout the United States that have sloped or cathedral ceilings.
This blueprint to prevent injuries and their resulting disabilities, deaths, and costs will guide research in seven key areas of injury prevention and control, including residential fire safety.
An educational video that demonstrates both the effectiveness and need for detection and suppression systems in campus housing.
This report addresses key variables such as material properties, usage criteria and limitations, system design, installation requirements, economics and maintenance. Information is presented that is useful for the selection of a sprinkler pipe material.
This research project will continue efforts to make electrical wiring in homes inherently safe, focusing on making the fire service, code officials, contractors, manufacturers and distributors, government agencies, and others aware of this technology and its life safety benefits.
The technology examined in this research effort will focus on the kitchen, as it is the most common area of residential fires. This technology will include range hood systems using liquid or powdered agents, and the concept or a single sprinkler connected to a domestic water system to protect cooking areas. This technology will be evaluated against "standard" kitchen fires.
This research project will examine ways to enhance reliability, as well as methodologies to develop better realistic testing methods. Past efforts have formed a consortium of manufacturers to actually perform the research.
Report on a multiple-stage demonstration project in multi-family residences undergoing rehabilitation, including results from five housing complexes where quick-response residential sprinklers were installed.
Report on a multiple-stage demonstration project in multi-family residences undergoing rehabilitation, including results from five housing complexes where quick-response residential sprinklers were installed.
Since the introduction of the residential sprinkler standard, NFPA 13D, in 1975, residential sprinkler systems have proven themselves as life safety systems. Because of improvements in system design and the incentives listed in this report, the use of new technology, such as residential and quick-response sprinklers, nearly tripled in the United States between 1987 and 1994, even though the total number of sprinklers installed increased only slightly. While there is growing recognition of the enhanced ability of fast-response sprinklers to protect life and property from fires, it is estimated that less than 3% of the one and two family homes in the United States have them installed.
This research project will examine manufacturing difficulties with regards to stove fire safety technologies, which have been developed as part of this research effort and how to overcome them.
This research project will review tests performed on alarms in the 1970's and examine the validity of these tests; examine new alarm technologies aimed to enhance alarm reliability and reduce false alarms; and determine applicability of current NFPA and Underwriters Laboratories standards.
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