Residential Structure Separation Fire Experiments.
Residential Structure Separation Fire Experiments.
(924 K)
Maranghides, A.; Johnsson, E. L.
NIST Technical Note 1600; NIST TN 1600; 41 p. August
2008.
Keywords:
residential buildings; structures; experiments; fire
spread; NFRIS; construction; heat release rate;
temperature; heat flux; data acquisition; uncertainty
Abstract:
Building codes often allow structures with window
openings and combustible exteriors to be built with as
little as 1.8m (6 ft) of separation between them. In a
recent full-scale laboratory experiment at the National
Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), it took
less than 80 s for flames from a simulated house with
combustible exterior walls to ignite a similar "house"
1.8 m (6 ft) away. In another experiment, involving the
same type of structures, the flames from one simulated
house again reached the second, but this time a gypsum
barrier protected the simulated home from sustained
ignition. The experiments showed that an adjacent
structure can be ignited if flames from a fire inside a
house exit through window openings. The experiments
illustrated how a fire resistant barrier can, in the
scenario tested, slow down flame spread between two
structures separated by 1.8m (6 ft). The scenarios
tested were not the worst case. Flame spread between
structures is a complex process primarily affected by
structure construction type, structure separation
distance, placement and size of windows and weather
conditions.
Building and Fire Research Laboratory
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Gaithersburg, MD 20899