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Engineering Laboratory

Fire Research Division

The Fire Research Division develops, verifies, and utilizes measurements and predictive methods to quantify the behavior of fire and means to reduce the impact of fire on people, property, and the environment.

Through its programs in measurement, prediction, systems integration, and the dynamics of fire and its interactions with the built and natural environment, the division provides leadership for advancing the theory and practice of fire safety engineering, fire fighting, fire investigation, fire testing, fire data management, and intentional burning.

News and Updates

Ankit Sharma

Staff Spotlight - Dr. Ankit Sharma

We are thrilled to announce that Dr. Ankit Sharma has joined the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as an Associate (PREP) in the

Projects and Programs

Advanced Fire Modeling

Ongoing
OBJECTIVE: To develop and maintain robust, validated fire models—and the associated visualization and analysis tools—for (1) performance-based design, (2) forensics (fire reconstruction), and (3) fire research applications in the built and natural environments. TECHNICAL IDEA: The development first

Advanced Gas-Phase Fire Retardants Project

Completed
Objective: By 2016 1, to provide data on and an understanding of the role of particle formation in limiting the action of gas-phase active phosphorous-based fire retardants added to polymers. What is the new technical idea? To effectively develop new fire retardants, industry needs an

Automated Tools for Material Property Calibration

Ongoing
Objective: To develop open source, freely available tools for property calibration and maintain archived, version-controlled material property sets with demonstrated accuracy. These tools should be: Accurate: Parameters predict experimental data Realistic: Values agree with physics Efficient: Fast

Design Fires for Structures Project

Ongoing
Objective: By 2016 to develop (1) the measurement science to fully characterize, deliver, and measure repeatable structurally significant fires for use in large-scale structural fire experiments and (2) a performance-based design framework linking fire intensity measures with expected structural

Software

FDS and Smokeview

Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) is a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of fire-driven fluid flow. The software solves numerically a form of the Navier
CFAST

CFAST

The Consolidated Model of Fire and Smoke Transport, CFAST, is a computer program that fire investigators, safety officials, engineers, architects and builders

ToGS Turnout Gear Selector

Turnout Gear Selector (ToGS) helps the manufacturers, purchasers and users of fire turnout gear evaluate and select the turnout coat and pants ensemble that

Tools and Instruments

Cone Calorimeter

Cone Calorimeter

In the late 1970s and early 1980s the fire community was pushing for reliable bench-scale tools to measure material flammability based on heat release rate. A

Fire Emulator/Detector Evaluator

The fire emulator/detector evaluator (FE/DE) is a computer-controlled flow tunnel used to re-create the environments surrounding detectors in the early stages

Radiative Gasification Apparatus

This apparatus, developed at EL, determines gasification rate (mass loss rate) of a horizontally oriented specimen exposed in a nitrogen environment to a

Awards