Online Access to and Data Analysis Tools for Experiments in Building and Fire Science. Final Report.
Online Access to and Data Analysis Tools for Experiments
in Building and Fire Science. Final Report.
(4497 K)
Woycheese, J. P.; Raghavan, V.; Kim, M.; Geller, F.
NIST GCR 06-894; 90 p. May 2006.
Sponsor:
National Institute of Standards and Technology,
Gaithersburg, MD
Keywords:
fire science; data analysis; experiments; computer
models; databases; material properties; sensitivity
analysis; fire protection engineering; fire tests
Abstract:
Scientists, engineers, and students have computational
tools to aid them in their efforts to model and
understand fire events. These users, however, must rely
on personal judgment to determine appropriate material
properties for theoretical analyses and computer models,
given the difficulty in obtaining validated inputs for
combustion and material properties. In addition,
unavailability of, or lack of confidence in, data ranges
for these model inputs precludes sensitivity analyses,
which would enable users to generate more complete
results and to verify their assumptions. Members of the
fire science community would benefit from an on-line
compendium, including experimental data and tools,
information about various concepts or procedures, and
multimedia content like videos, photographs, and
reports. The pervasiveness of the Web enables access by
people from diverse locales, while allowing similar, but
geographically remote, audiences to share their
knowledge. A number of disparate, individual efforts
provide material about fire-science-related topics and
there have been a number of studies documenting these
electronic resources for the fire field. BFRL/NIST
provides the primary on-line libraries for fire
protection engineering. The references provided thereby
are largely bibliographic in nature, although
BFRL-generated documents (in Acrobat Portable Document
Format files), modeling software programs, and some
limited data are available. The latter is not
predominantly web-based, but specific data plots, brief
descriptions of facility and experimental caliber, and
links to project reports and data files are available
through the Fire Data Management System, via the web and
CDROM. The National Fire Protection Association provides
electronic access to the National Fire Codes, along with
a collection of fire investigation and other
fire-related reports, has developed an electronic
version of the Fire Protection Handbook and has released
a CDROM containing the SFPE Handbook of Fire Protection
Engineering. The Institute for Research in Construction
(IRC) has a publications database that is updated
weekly. The Fire Safety Engineering Group at the
University of Greenwich has a few animated simulations
on their web site; this appears to be a showcase of
current and past research, rather than a reference
library. These and other collections, such as Firewise,
which provides information on urban/wildland intermix
fire concepts, would benefit from accessibility through
a centralized search interface. Furthermore, the U.S.
Fire Administration is studying the feasibility of
establishing a national fire service archive, named
Heritage Hall, to document and preserve the history of
the fire-fighting profession in fire service technology
and techniques, fire prevention, emergency medical
services, hazmat, rescue, etc. Although these resources
provide pertinent and useful information to those who
know of them, none provides a centralized collection of
material addressing the needs of the above audiences.
Building and Fire Research Laboratory
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Gaithersburg, MD 20899