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Engineering Laboratory / Fire Research Division

Flammability Reduction Group

Projects/Programs

Displaying 1 - 8 of 8
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.

Advanced Measurements for Material Property Calibration

Ongoing
DEVICES AND APPLICATIONS Smoldering and Flaming Heats of Combustion (∆Hc,char and ∆Hc,gas): Repeated tests were performed using a microscale combustion calorimeter (MCC) to independently measure the heat of combustion of flaming combustion (∆Hc,gas) and the heat of combustion of char oxidation (∆Hc...
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.
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.

Vegetative Fuels (Wildfire Research)

Ongoing
Firebrand Yield Between December 2019 and January 2020, 14 full-scale experiments were conducted at the University of Maryland in collaboration with NIST to measure variations in burning behavior and firebrand yield (i.e., mass of firebrands generated per total mass lost: ) as full-scale vegetation...
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