Fire Spread Through a Room With Polyurethane Foam Covered Walls.
Fire Spread Through a Room With Polyurethane Foam
Covered Walls.
(1558 K)
Madrzykowski, D.; Bryner, N. P.; Grosshandler, W. L.;
Stroup, D. W.
Volume 2;
Interflam 2004. (Interflam '04). International
Interflam Conference, 10th Proceedings. Volume 2. July
5-7, 2004. Organised by Interscience Communications
Ltd. in association with National Institute of Standards
and Technology, Building Research Establishment;
National Fire Protection Association; Society of Fire
Protection Engineers; and Swedish National Testing and
Research Institute, Edinburgh, Scotland, Interscience
Communications Ltd., London, England, 1127-1138 pp,
2004.
Keywords:
fire science; fire safety; polyurethane foams; fire
spread; room fires; walls; expeirments; instruments;
sprinklers; gas temperature; gas concentration;
simulation
Abstract:
As part of its technical investigation of the fire that
occurred in a Rhode Island, USA nightclub in February,
2003, NIST has conducted real-scale experiments to
better understand the rate at which fire spreads over
foam covered walls and the environment that it creates
within a test room. A physical mock-up was recreated in
the NIST large fire laboratory, using approximate
dimensions and materials that were similar to but not
exact duplicates of what existed in the stage area of
the nightclub. The overall floor dimensions of the test
room were 10.8 m by 7.0 m, and the ceiling height was
3.8 m. A single open door was located in one wall.
Convoluted polyurethane foam covered the drywall ceiling
and the wood paneled walls of the alcove area, and
extended along two walls. The test room was equipped
with numerous thennocouples, video cameras, an infrared
camera, heat flux gauges, bi-directional probes, and gas
extraction probes to measure CO, CO2, O2 and HCN.
Ignition was by two electric matches. The fire gases
that emerged from the open door were captured in an
oxygen depletion calorimeter. The Fire Dynamic Simulator
(FDS) and Smoke View software were used to model the
fire and smoke spread based upon the geometry, vent
opening, wall and interior finishes. The preliminary
simulations completed to date are able to recreate in a
qualitative fashion the fire spread and smoke movement
through the test room. The results do not reproduce
exactly what happened in the nightclub during the .fire.
but they do guide the simulations of the fire spread
through the entire building which are currently underway
as part of the NIST investigation. Experiments conducted
with and without sprinklers behaved dramatically
different, as one would expect. The temperature, gas
volume fractions, flame spread; and heat release rate
for the un-sprinklered experiment are compared to
predictions of FDS and to measurements taken with
sprinklers installed.
Building and Fire Research Laboratory
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Gaithersburg, MD 20899