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Fire Research Grants and Cooperative Agreements Project

Summary:

Fire Research Grants and Cooperative Agreements support extramural work to reduce the total burden of fire on the U.S. economy, which is estimated as greater than $300 billion in 2008 or roughly 2 % of the U.S. gross domestic product.[1]  The grants provide funding for the development of measurement science to support the Fire Risk Reduction in Communities and Fire Risk Reduction in Buildings Programs.  This year, there are ten continuing and three new cooperative agreements which support measurement science research in fire modeling, materials flammability, predicting the spread of wildland-urban interface fires, fire protection engineering, and fire fighting technologies.

 

[1] John Hall, The Social Cost of Fire, NFPA, Quincy, MA, 2011.

 

Description:

Objective:  To support the objectives of the Fire Risk Reduction in Communities and Fire Risk Reduction in Buildings Programs, which is to achieve a significant reduction in the impact of fire on communities, structures, their occupants, and the fire service through the development and implementation of measurement science and standards.

What is the new technical idea?  The idea underpinning this project is that innovation in building design, materials, products and fire protection systems requires the establishment of critical solution-enabling tools  (metrics, models and knowledge), and a profession properly educated to implement these innovations, that can be facilitated by marshaling the intellectual resources of those beyond NIST, including those in academia and industry.  As recommended in the 2003 report of the National Research Council (NRC),[2] there is a need to "fund a program in basic fire research and interdisciplinary fire studies to hasten the development and deployment of improved fire safety practices through more coordinated, better targeted, and significantly increased levels of fire research in the United States." This project supports measurement science, both basic and applied, which addresses key aspects of the national fire problem, consistent with EL’s draft Innovative Fire Protection Roadmap and EL’s strategic fire-related goals and programs. This project does not support product development.

What is the research plan?  This year, there are ten continuing and three new grants which support measurement science research in EL’s fire-related program areas (see Appendix 1 for a list of grants).  The grants support critical research in fire modeling, materials flammability, predicting the spread of wildland-urban interface fires, fire protection engineering, and fire fighting technologies.

An annual notice provides information on the availability of grant funds, applicant eligibility, program objectives, and selection criteria is issued in the Federal Register when funds are appropriated by Congress.  As outlined in the Federal Register, proposals are sought that support specific objectives of the division.[3]  Grant awards are competitive and are based on a review and selection process. The process starts with submission of proposals, which are due in January. The review for a particular grant or cooperative agreement is coordinated by a NIST staff member (Federal Program Officer or FPO), who is selected by the project Principal Investigator.  A minimum of three subject matter technical experts are selected as reviewers.  At a minimum, one reviewer must be external to the Fire Research Division.  Potential reviewers are asked to not complete the review if there is a conflict of interest that would prevent objective evaluation of the proposal. Reviewers are asked to supply detailed comments to support their numerical ratings of the proposals. The comments will help inform the decision-making on the proposal submission and are forwarded to the authors of the proposal.  The identity of reviewers is confidential.  The criteria follow NSF’s National Science Board approved merit review norms.

Reviewers are asked to use four proposal evaluation criteria to rate the proposals, including the technical merit, the potential impact of the results, staff and institutional capability to do the work, and the match of the budget to the proposed work.  To evaluate the technical merit, reviewers are asked to assess the clarity, rationality, organization, and innovation of the proposed work, and assign a numerical score of 0 to 40 points. Reviewers are asked to assess the potential impact and the likelihood of technical application of the results to the national fire problem, and assign a numerical score of 0 to 40 points.  A link to EL’s website with its strategic fire-related goals, programs, and projects is provided.  Reviewers are asked to evaluate the quality of the facilities and experience of the staff to assess the likelihood of achieving the objective of the proposal, and assign a numerical score of 0 to 10 points.  Reviewers are asked to assess the budget against the proposed work to ascertain the reasonableness of the request, and assign a numerical score of 0 to 10 points.

The proposal selection process occurs in June at a Panel meeting with Fire Research Division Program Managers and Group Leaders. Subject matter experts may be invited to participate in the discussion as appropriate.  FPOs explain the reviewers’ findings and recommend acceptance or rejection.  The Panel discusses proposals and the FPO answers questions to clarify proposal details.  The Panel ranks the proposals and establishes a cutoff. The recommendations are forwarded to EL Headquarters for concurrence.

 

[2] Making the Nation Safe from Fire, a Path Forward in Research, The National Academies Press, 2003.

[3] FIRE RESEARCH DIVISION:  Promotes U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness in areas of critical national priority by anticipating and meeting the measurement science and standards needs for fire prevention and control used in manufacturing, construction, and cyber-physical systems in ways that enhance economic prosperity and improve the quality of life.  Carries out mission functions in fire prevention and control; and national construction safety teams.   Carries out other measurement science research and services to support mission functions as may be necessary, including reducing the risks and consequences of fires in buildings and wildland-urban interface communities; advancing fire fighting safety and effectiveness; providing cost-effective engineered fire protection; and reducing the flammability of building contents.

FIRE FIGHTING TECHNOLOGY GROUP:  Develops, advances, and deploys measurement science to improve fire fighting safety and effectiveness, and provide a science-based understanding of fire phenomena.  Carries out mission-related measurement science research and services to advance fire fighting tactics; technology integration into fire-fighting equipment; physics-based training tools that predict fire phenomena and their effects on structures and occupants; fire forensics; and conduct disaster and failure studies to reduce the risk of fire hazard to buildings and fire fighters.

ENGINEERED FIRE SAFETY GROUP:  Develops, advances, and deploys measurement science for cost-effective fire protection of structures.  Carries out mission-related measurement science research and services to predict the fire performance of structures with respect to ignition fire growth and spread, detection, suppression, toxicity, and egress; develop cost-effective performance-based codes, standards, and practices used for fire prevention and control; and conduct disaster and failure studies to reduce the risk of fire hazard to buildings and occupants.

FLAMMABILITY REDUCTION GROUP: Develops, advances, and deploys measurement science to reduce the fire hazard of building contents and construction materials.  Carries out mission-related measurement science research and services to reduce material ignition probability, fire growth and spread, and environmental impacts; and develop codes and standards for cost-effective, fire-safe building contents and construction materials.

WILDLAND URBAN INTERFACE FIRE GROUP:  Develops, advances, and deploys measurement science to reduce the risk of fire spread in wildland-urban interface (WUI) communities.  Carries out mission-related measurement science research and services to develop risk exposure metrics; predict the spread of fires in WUI communities; assess fire performance of structures and communities; mitigate the impact of WUI fires on structures and communities; and conduct disaster and failure studies to reduce the risk of fire hazard in WUI communities.

NATIONAL FIRE RESEARCH LABORATORY:  Develops, advances, and deploys measurement science to characterize the real-scale fire behavior of combustibles, and the fire performance of structures under realistic fire and structural loading.  Carries out mission-related measurement science research and services to improve the fire performance of communities, structures and building contents; develop physics-based models that predict fire behavior and structural performance; and conduct disaster and failure studies to reduce the risk of fire hazards to structures and fire fighters.

 

Major Accomplishments:

Recent Results:

Outputs:

  • Observed anomalous egress behavior including merging and platooning on building evacuation time. (Milke)
  • Analyzed kitchen fire data, establisheding performance metrics, & developeding a prioritized action plan. (Almand)
  • The behavior and collapse of structures exposed to fire was described using nonlinear implicit dynamics analysis.[4] Design provisions for steel columns exposed to fire was presented to the AISC Committee on Fire Resistant Design for consideration as a standard. (Varma)
  • Databases have been developed on fire risk and performance based on fire loss statistics and investigation reports (covering various occupancy types and supporting characterization of design fire scenarios) and data for characterizing fuel packages for computational fire effects modeling (which supports development of design fire curves)[17] (Meacham)

Outcomes:

  • Knowledge to inform the development of fire-safe furniture and thermoplastic containing commodities:
    • A fabric coating method for applying nano-layered flame retardants was developed.  (Grunlan)
    • A method to synthesize surface functionalized cellulose nanofibrils was developed, enabling sustained fire safe-materials. (Fox)
    • Developed layered double hydroxide flame retardant nano-materials. (Wilke)
    • Created polyurethane foam and determined appropriate chemical approaches best suited to deliver superior FR performance. (Morgan) 
  • Improvements to the Wildland Fire Dynamics Simulator (WFDS) fire modeling tool including enhanced capabilities and accuracy, and improved physics, lists of flammability characteristics of ornamental plant in the southeast U.S.A., a simple fire spread modeling tool, a GIS-based tool for creating WFDS input files as documented in numerous publications. [5],[6],[7],[8],[9],[10],[11] (McNamara)
  • Developed a differential-scanning-calorimetry-based procedure for measuring the heats of decomposition and heat capacities of homogeneous combustible solids using very small samples on the order of mg. (Stoliarov)
  • Improvements to the Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) fire modeling tool including enhanced capabilities and accuracy, improved physics, new schemas, and implementation of revision control and configuration management as documented in numerous publications.[14]  Significantly improved and new subroutines in the Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) including the HVAC network model, soot deposition on walls, droplet evaporation and thermodynamics, improved thermophysical properties of liquids and gases, species database and new combustion model data structures and architecture,[15] which has supported codes and standards development worldwide.[16] (Floyd)
  • A new paradigm for building fire performance and a new approach to risk-informed performance-based analysis and design has been developed. Analysis includes a comparison of the International Fire Engineering Guidelines (IFEG), BS7974, ISO TR13882, and the SFPE Engineering Guide to Performance-Based Fire Protection Design.[18] (Meacham)

Impacts:

  • Adoption of new hydrogen quenching limits in the revised SAE J2579 hydrogen vehicle fire safety standard on hydrogen leaks as documented in numerous publications.[12]  Knowledge to inform deliberation in NFPA 2 standard on hydrogen fire safety as documented in numerous publications.[13] (Sunderland)

Historic Grant Projects:

Outputs:

  • Between 1978 and 1984 Howard Emmons (Harvard University)  established the framework for building fire models upon which the NIST zone model (CFAST) and the NIST CFD model (FDS) are built, and upon which the entire Fire Protection Engineering profession now depends.
  • Between 1980 and 2000, academic centers at Princeton, University of Utah, Cal Tech,  Michigan State U, UC San Diego, and UC Berkeley enabled ground-breaking advances in fire dynamics, fire chemistry, fire suppression, fire structure, toxicity, mass and heat transfer, soot, and the impact of elevated temperatures on structures.
  • The education of generations of fire scientists has been supported through the Fire Grants as documented by numerous theses and dissertations over many years.[19]
  • Research need summits have been supported.[20]

Standards and Codes:  Although the results of research conducted through NIST’s Fire Grants have historically indirectly supported standards and codes, this activity has not been previously emphasized as part of the selection criteria.  The plan is to change the federal register notice to highlight the importance of standards and codes.  Some recent examples of grants supporting standards and codes are given in the section above on recent results.

 

[4] Hong, Varma, "Analytical Modeling of the Standard Fire Behavior of Loaded CFT Columns," J Constructional Steel Research, p. 54, vol. 65, (2009). 

  • Hong,  Varma, Agarwal, "Predicting Column Buckling Under Fire Loading Using Fundamental Section Behavior", Journal of the ASTM International, p. 23, vol. 1, (2010).
  • Agarwal, Varma, "Behavior and Design of Steel Members Under Fire Loading", Journal of Structural Engineering, ASCE, (2010).
  • Cedeno, Varma, "Behavior and Design of Composite Beams Under Fire Loading", Journal of Structural Engineering, (2010).

[5] McNamara, 2007 Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) International User Conference.

[6] McNamara, 2007 Indigenous Mapping Network Conference; McNamera, 2007 Washington Geographic Information Council Quarterly Meeting.

[7] McNamara, "Enhancing the Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) for Modeling WUI Fires," 2006 Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) Northwest Users Conference.

[8] Mell, Manzello, Maranghides, Butry, Rehm, “Wildland-Urban-Interface Fires: Current Approaches and Research Needs,” International Journal of Wildland Fire, to appear

[9] Rehm, Mell, "A Simple Model for Wind Effects of Burning Structures and Topography on WUI Surface-Fire Propagation," accepted for publication in the International Journal of Wildland Fire.

[10] Rehm, "The Effects of Winds from Burning Structures on Ground-Fire Propagation at the Wildland-Urban Interface,” Combustion Theory and Modeling. 12:477-496, 2008.

[11] Rehm, Evans, "Physics - Based Modeling of Wildland - Urban Interface Fires,” in "Remote Sensing and Modeling Applications to Wildland Fires," a book in Geosciences Series published by Springer-Verlag and Tsinghua University Press.

[12] Lecoustre, C.W. Moran, P.B. Sunderland, B.H. Chao, R.L. Axelbaum, Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Extremely Weak Hydrogen Diffusion Flames, Combustion and Flame, in preparation.

  • Butler, C.W. Moran, P.B. Sunderland, R.L. Axelbaum, Limits for Hydrogen Leaks that can Support Stable Flames, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, submitted.
  • Lim, B.H. Chao, P.B. Sunderland, R.L. Axelbaum, A Theoretical Study of Spontaneous Ignition of Fuel Jets in an Oxidizing Ambient with Emphasis on Hydrogen Jets, Combustion Theory and Modeling, 12 (2008) 1179-1196.

[13] Brady, K. Kamal, C.J. Sung, and J.S. T’ien, “Ignition Propensity of Premixed H2/Air Mixtures in the Presence of a Platinum Surface,” Sixth Joint Meeting, U.S. Section Combust. Institute, Ann Arbor, MI, 2009.

C.J. Sung, J.S. T’ien, K.B. Brady, and K. Kumar, Ignition Propensity of Hydrogen in the Presence of Metal Surfaces, NIST Annual Fire Conference, Gaithersburg, April 2008 and April 2009.

[14] Floyd, J.E. and McGrattan, K.B., "Extending the Mixture Fraction Concept to Address Under-Ventilated Fires," Fire Safety Journal, 44, 291-300, 2009.

[15] McDermott, R., McGrattan, and Floyd. A Simple Reaction Time Scale for Under-Resolved Fire Dynamics, in 10th International Symposium, IAFSS, University of Maryland, June 19-24, 2011.

[16]

Building Codes:

  • The ICC International Performance Code is completely dependent upon the existence of validated fire models
  • The ICC International Building Code recently considered code change proposals whose sole technical justification was the results of FDS simulations (e.g., Boeing Co. simulated large (10 MW) fires in large volume aircraft assembly structures).
Standards:
  • NFPA 72 (Smoke Alarms) includes PBD modeling as a component to determine detector spacing for automatic detection systems
  • NFPA 130 (Passenger Rail and Tunnel Safety) requires validated fire model calculations as part of the design of tunnel ventilation.
  • NFPA 802 (Fire Protection Practice for Nuclear Reactors) requires validated fire models for design calculations.
  • The (NFPA) Fire Protection Research Foundation has recently highlighted the use of FDS in six major studies that it has sponsored with industry including, Smoke Detector Performance for Ceilings with Deep Beam Pockets, Siting Requirements for Hydrogen Supplies, Modeling of Fire Spread in Roadway Tunnels, Smoke Detection of Incipient Fires, Smoke Detector Spacing for Sloped Ceilings, and Smoke Detector Spacing for Corridors with Deep Beams. All of these studies were motivated by technical issues originating with the above NFPA standards.
ASTM E1355 and ISO (ISO/TC 92/SC 4) have published guidance documents on evaluating the performance of fire models.  CFAST and FDS development and V&V supports these international standards.

[17] Alvarez, A. and Meacham, B.J., “’Ready-to-Use’ Building Layouts and Combustible Packages for 3-D Fire Simulations,” Proceedings - Fire and Evacuation Modeling Technical Conference, Baltimore, MD, 16 August 2011.

[18] Alvarez, A. and Meacham, B.J., “Test-bed Environment Process for Assessing the Appropriateness of Engineering Tools to be Used in Performance-Based Design Applications,” to be published in Proceedings, 9th SFPE International Conference on Performance-Based Codes and Fire Safety Design Methods, SFPE, Bethesda, MD, June 2012.

[19] Partial List of NIST Fire Grant Supported Theses and Dissertations:

  • Blair, Alyson J., “The Effect of Stair Width on Occupant Speed and Flow of High Rise Buildings,” MS Thesis, University of Maryland, May 2010.  
  • Leahy, Andrew, “Observed Trends in Human Behavior Phenomena within High-Rise Stairwells,” MS Thesis, University of Maryland, August 2011.  
  • Lim, An Asymptotic Analysis of Spontaneous Ignition of Hydrogen Jets, M.S. Thesis, Department of Fire Protection Engineering, University of Maryland, 64 pp., May, 2007.
  • Rowe, J., The Impact of Thermal Imaging Camera Display Quality on Fire Fighter Task Performance, M.S. Thesis, Department of Fire Protection Engineering, University of Maryland,, Nov. 2008.
  • Butler, Flame Quenching and Materials Degradation of Hydrogen Leaks, M.S. Thesis, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis, May, 2008.
  • Moran, Flame Quenching Limits of Hydrogen Leaks, M.S. Thesis, Department of Fire Protection Engineering, 48 pp., May, 2008.
  • Morton, Quenching Limits and Materials Degradation of Hydrogen Diffusion Flames, M.S. Thesis, Department of Fire Protection Engineering, 49 pp., May, 2008.
  • Dreisbach, J., Flammability Characteristic of Painted Concrete Blocks. M.S. Thesis, Department of Fire Protection Engineering, U.  Maryland., College Park, April 2002.
  • Averill, A., Performance-Based Codes:  Economics, Documentation, and Design, M.S. Thesis, Department of Fire Protection Engineering, Worcester Polytechnic Inst., MA, July 1998.
  • Rhodes, B. T., Burning Rate and Flame Heat Flux for PMMA in the Cone Calorimeter, U. Maryland, College Park, December 1994.
  • Brehob, E. G., Upward Flame Spread on Vertical Walls With External Radiation. Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, May 1994.
  • Finlayson, E. U., Theoretical Predictions of Transient Temperature Profiles in Nongray Semitransparent Plane Layers With Experimental Verification. Maryland Univ., College Park, 1990.
  • Chen, Y., Experimental Study of the Pyrolysis of Pure and Fire Retarded    Cellulose. Brown Univ., Providence, RI, June 1989.
  • Abu-Zaid, M., Effect of Water on Piloted Ignition of Cellulosic Materials, Michigan State Univ., East Lansing, Feb. 1989.
  • Malek, D. E., New Models to Assess Behavioral and Physiological Performance of Animals during Inhalation Exposures. Pittsburgh Univ., PA, October 1988.
  • Esposito, F. M., Blood and Air Concentrations of Benzene, Carbon Monoxide and Hydrogen Cyanide Following Inhalation of These Gases or Thermal Decomposition Products of Polymers Releasing These Toxicants. Pittsburgh Univ., PA, September 1987.
  • Okoh, C. I., Soot and Radiation in Free Boundary Layer Flames, UC Berkeley, December, 1984.
  • Peters, J. F., SEES (Strength Evaluation of Existing Structures):  An Expert System for the Strength Evaluation of Existing Structural Members. Carnegie-Mellon Univ., Pittsburgh, PA, January 1988.
  • Mitani, T., Studies of Premixed Hydrogen Flames. California Univ., San Diego, 1979.
  • Durak, O. T., Combustion of Wood Cribs in Diluted Atmosphere, Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL, 1976.
  • Seshadri, K., The Structure and Extinction of Flames, UC San Diego, Dissertation, 1974.

[20] National Fire Research Needs Symposium (NFFF), Fallen Firefighter Foundation. 2005.