The Fire Safety Research Institute (FSRI) has released a technical report, “Measurement of Heat Transfer and Fire Damage Patterns on Walls for Fire Model Validation.” The report, published in collaboration with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Fire Research Laboratory, can be downloaded here (208 MB).
The report is part of the Heat Transfer and Fire Damage Patterns on Walls for Fire Model Validation research project, which was funded through a grant from the National Institute of Justice.
The report details the measurements, analysis, and findings from a series of experiments that address three fire model validation spaces: thermal exposure to walls, heat transfer within walls, and fire damage patterns on walls. A total of 63 experiments were conducted, encompassing seven fire sources and three wall types (each combination in triplicate). Fire sources include a natural gas burner, gasoline and heptane pools, wood cribs, and upholstered furniture.
In addition to obtaining valuable data to support fire model validation, this study revealed a pathway for fire investigators to relate fire model predictions (mass loss occurring in gypsum wallboard, driven by thermal decomposition of the material) to physical evidence collected in an investigation (discoloration fire damage patterns). The dataset from this project is available in a public repository, and will be leveraged in future validation studies.
