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Engineering Laboratory

Fire Research Division

Projects/Programs

Displaying 1 - 25 of 28
FDS Ceiling Smoke

Advanced Fire Modeling

Ongoing
This project develops and maintains robust, validated fire models—and the associated visualization and analysis tools—for performance-based fire safety, forensics (fire reconstruction), and fire research applications in the built and natural environments.
Flame Retardants (cropped)

Advanced Gas-Phase Fire Retardants Project

Completed
This project provides insights into the role of particle formation in limiting the effectiveness of gas-phase, phosphorus-based fire retardants when added to polymers.
Smoke swirls around a white smoke detector on a ceiling.

Building Fire Safety Evaluation

Ongoing
This project aims to reduce residential fire deaths and injuries by advancing detection systems, researching smoke measurements, and evaluating new technologies' impact on safety. It develops datasets and models to assess building fire hazards, informing better codes, standards, and public awareness efforts.
Design Fire Curves

Design Fires for Structures Project

Completed
By 2016, this project aims to develop (1) measurement science for characterizing and measuring repeatable structurally significant fires for large-scale experiments, and (2) a performance-based design framework linking fire intensity with expected structural performance objectives.
Room Flashover Fire Test

Fire Risk Reduction in Buildings Program

Ongoing
This program advances fire measurement capabilities, predictive models, testing methods, detection technologies, and fire-resistant materials to create innovative, cost-effective solutions that enhance occupant safety and improve the fire resistance of buildings and their contents.
Phase 1 Sheds

Fire Risk Reduction in Communities Program

Ongoing
This program advances measurement science to improve community and building resilience to fires, address risks of new technologies, and enhance firefighter awareness and equipment performance through science-based codes, standards, and practices.
Battery Puncture Test

Fire Risks of New Technologies

Ongoing
This project supports the U.S. in assessing and mitigating fire risks from new technologies, leveraging NIST's unique fire expertise.
Cube test

Functional Barriers for Low-Flammability Products

Ongoing
This project enables low-flammability products without flame retardants by providing methods to assess functional barriers, advancing their performance, and exploring their use in multi-layer products for critical applications.
Scrubber cropped

Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Transport

Completed
This project develops a high-accuracy reference system for near-industrial-scale CO2 measurements, providing a framework for low-uncertainty emissions data and improving atmospheric dispersion models to reduce uncertainties in greenhouse gas source predictions.
Timelapse of intermediate flame spread test

Material Flammability Characterization

Ongoing
This project develops a database that includes tools, measurement data, material properties, and validation data to enable quantitative prediction of material flammability behavior, such as ignition, steady burning, and fire growth.
Photo montage showing fill the airplane with fire-fighting foam, a spilled glass of wine on the tablecloth. Cleaning clothes and furniture from stains, Discarded Fast Food Wrappers Littered on Ground, wateproof jacket with water droplets on it. Jacket using the gore-tex technology.

Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS)

Ongoing
Perfluorinated and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS) constitute a family of compounds that are distinguished by partial or complete fluorination of alkyl hydrocarbons. Dubbed “forever chemicals”, the unique chemistry of PFAS imparts a high level of stability, making the compounds resistant to
First Responders

Public Health Risks to First Responders

Ongoing
This project advances tools and methods to analyze per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in firefighter gear and workplaces, supporting the development of standards, policies, and best practices to reduce firefighter PFAS exposure.

Reduced Ignition and Flame Spread with Nano-Engineered Foam Project

Completed
By 2015, this project aims to develop measurement science for (1) designing low-fire hazard soft furnishings using low-heat release, cost-effective, EHS-compliant nanoparticle fire retardant foam, (2) assessing the EHS attributes of nanoparticle fire retardants for polymer systems, and (3) creating a reference polyurethane foam with reproducible smoldering mass loss.
ESO general Evacuation

Safety of Building Occupants Project

Completed
By 2016, this project aims to develop a framework for a model predicting evacuation decision-making during building fires, improving the accuracy of egress modeling tools used in performance-based design (PBD) of buildings.
A fireball rushes out of the opening of a small metal compartment in a concrete room.

Smart Fire Fighting for Tactical Decisions

Ongoing
This project develops measurement science and technology to enable Cyber-Physical systems that enhance situational awareness, operational effectiveness, and firefighter safety.