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PUBLICATIONS

Experimental Study of Firebrand Transport

Published

Author(s)

Samuel L. Manzello, Kuibin Zhou, Sayaka Suzuki

Abstract

The NIST Firebrand Generator (NIST Dragon) has been used to quantify the vulnerability of structures to ignition by firebrand attack. The Firebrand Generator is also a useful device to study firebrand transport, and has been used to validate firebrand transport models. During this series of firebrand transport experiments, the Firebrand Generator was fed with wood cubes of uniform size. The glowing firebrands generated from the combustion of these wood cubes were collected in an array of water-filled pans that were arranged to collect the bulk of the lofted firebrands. The pan arrangement was determined from repeated preliminary studies. These experiments were performed over a range of wind speeds (up to 9 m/s) to determine the lofting distance of the firebrands generated. The major change in these experiments from prior work was that, for a given wind speed, the firebrand size and mass was determined at each pan location. In the past, it was only possible to determine the number distribution; specifically the number of firebrands at each spatial location was counted (not resolved at every pan but only across a given row of pans). Statistical analysis indicated that a normal distribution was able to capture the number/mass percentage versus horizontal distance. This study will provide even greater fidelity measurements to validate firebrand transport models, and provide further insights into the operation of the Firebrand Generator.
Proceedings Title
Proceeedings of the Annual Symposium of the Japan Association for Fire Science and Engineering
Conference Dates
May 27-28, 2014
Conference Location
Tokyo
Pub Type
Conferences

Keywords

Firebrands, WUI
Fire

Citation

Manzello, S. , Zhou, K. and Suzuki, S. (2014), Experimental Study of Firebrand Transport, Proceeedings of the Annual Symposium of the Japan Association for Fire Science and Engineering, Tokyo, -1 (Accessed April 23, 2024)

Created May 27, 2014, Updated February 19, 2017