The NIST Indoor Structure Separation Experiments (NISSE) aim to quantify the effects of shed sizes, construction types, fuel loading, and separation distance on the ignition of primary structures (residential dwellings). Experiments are conducted at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety (IBHS). The NIST experiments are conducted at the National Fire Research Laboratory (NFRL), and the IBHS experiments are conducted just outside of their facility’s wind loading test cell. The opening of the test cell (13.7 m (45 ft) wide) will dictate the largest source structure that can be evaluated at IBHS.
The Structure Separation Experiments (SSE) project was developed at NIST to assess structure-to-structure fire spread in wildland-urban interface (WUI) communities. The project has two parts:
Shed Experiments without Wind: The primary purpose of the indoor burn experiments was to quantify thermal exposures from residential storage sheds in terms of heat release rates. The effects of shed size, construction type, fuel loading, and separation distance on the ignition of target structure was quantified under no artificially applied wind conditions. The experimental series was denoted as NIST Indoor Structure Separation Experiments (NISSE).
Maranghides, A., et al. (2021) Structure Separation Experiments Phase 1 Preliminary Test Plan. NIST Technical Note 2161. National Institute of Standards and Technology. Gaithersburg, MD. https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.TN.2161
Maranghides, A., et al. (2022) Structure Separation Experiments: Shed Burns without Wind. NIST Technical Note NIST TN 2235. National Institute of Standards and Technology. Gaithersburg, MD. https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.TN.2235