BFRL Program

Advanced Measurement and Prediction Methods

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Component Projects

The objective of this program is to lead the world in fire measurement and predictive methods, enabling engineered fire safety for people, products, facilities, and first responders. This work underpins the Advanced Fire Service Technologies and Reduced Risk of Flashover Programs as well as the WTC Investigation. The AM&PM work will be carried out in close coordination with those programs and their partners, towards the BFRL Goal of Fire Loss Reduction.

INTENDED OUTCOME AND BACKGROUND

Engineering correlations developed through fire testing over the past 25 years have improved fire codes and technologies in the U.S. and produced a slow decline in the number of deaths and injuries due to unwanted fires (excluding the singular event of the WTC collapse); however, the total economic burden of fire in the U.S. continues to rise. To counteract these losses in an economic manner and to preempt the anticipated increase in fire-related deaths and injuries associated with a larger and more aged population, new fire safety technologies and performance-based codes are needed that only can be achieved by a higher level of understanding of the dynamics of fire, and more certain measurement methods.  

During the next ten years, the building industry in the United States and the rest of the world will be undergoing a radical change as prescriptive fire codes for built facilities are replaced by performance based codes.  NIST is at the right place and the right time to take a leadership role in this coming “revolution” and assure that the benefit to the general public and the American economy are maximized in this transformation.  Designers of fire protection systems in new buildings and retrofit situations will be under increasing pressure to improve performance and reduce costs by implementing new and clever passive and active fire protection. To enable this work to succeed, BFRL must provide leadership in creating the knowledge base that will allow the development of accurate and appropriate predictive tools that are key to the implementation of performance based design of fire protection systems. 

Fundamental experiments and analyses will be coordinated with full-scale measurements and data to increase our ability to numerically simulate and visualize real fire phenomena with increasing certainty. Direct numerical simulation and computational fluid dynamic models of the transport processes will be further expanded to encompass better models of radiation and the behavior of droplets and sprays, and semi-empirical sub-models will be developed for heat and mass transfer at the fuel/flame interface and in the condensed phase itself.  New instrumentation and test methods will be developed to support these models, and reference data will be produced against which predictions can be compared at multiple levels: sub-grid scale, single item response to fire, second item burning, and full scale demonstrations. The overall goal of reducing fire loss will guide the research conducted in this program, and a conscious effort will be made to influence other national and international fire laboratories, industrial partners, and standards making bodies consistent with the budget and our vision to lead the world in methods of measurement and prediction of the behavior of fire and its effects. 

During the next decade, BFRL will continue to work with industry, fire testing laboratories, national and international organizations that determine fire standards and codes, university researchers, other government agencies, and international fire researchers to reduce fire losses. This program will underpin that work, providing the knowledge and tools to reduce fire loss and become the recognized source of accurate measurement and predictive methods for fire in buildings.>

 

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