An official website of the United States government
Here’s how you know
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock (
) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.
Steve Gwynne, Erica D. Kuligowski, Karen E. Boyce, Daniel Nilsson, Amanda Robbins, Ruggiero Lovreglio, J.R. Thomas, A. Roy-Poirier
This article explores how egress drills - specifically those related to fire incidents - are currently employed, their impact on safety levels, and the insights gained from them. It is suggested that neither the merits of egress drills are well understood
Valeri I. Babushok, Gregory T. Linteris, Pol Hoorelbeke
A kinetic model of inhibition by the potassium containing compound potassium bicarbonate is suggested. The model is based on the previous work concerning kinetic studies of suppression of secondary flashes, inhibition by alkali metals and the studies of
There is concern about the hazard of acute residential CO exposures from portable gasoline powered generators that can result in death or serious adverse health effects in exposed individuals. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission subsequently
Wildfires that spread into communities, referred to as Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) fires, have destroyed communities in numerous countries on several continents. Large outdoor fires in Japan mainly occur after earthquakes, which may initiate complex
Predicting human behavior is an important aspect of performance-based design. However, our current evacuation modeling tools focus much more on simulating, verifying, and validating the movement of people throughout the building; often neglecting to
James White, Sebastien Vilfayeau, Andre Marshall, Arnaud Trouve, Randall McDermott
This work seeks to support the validation of large eddy simulation (LES) models used to simulate the response of fires to the activation of a suppression system. The emphasis in the present study is on the prediction of flame weakening and extinction when
Numerical simulation of bubble growth during pool boiling under the influence of low frequency vibration was done to understand the influence of common vibrations such as those induced by wind, highway transportation, and nearby mechanical devices on the
A series of experiments was conducted to examine the potential to use kitchen-installed photoelectric smoke detection devices to warn of approaching ignition of food during unattended cooking. An electric range, range hood, and cabinets were installed in a
Jian Jiang, Joseph A. Main, Fahim Sadek, Jonathan M. Weigand
This report presents detailed and reduced-order finite element modeling of heat transfer in composite floor slabs with profiled steel decking. The detailed modeling approach uses solid elements for the concrete slab and shell elements for the steel decking
Kathryn Butler, Erica D. Kuligowski, Susanne M. Furman, Richard Peacock
Since the tragic loss of life in the World Trade Center disaster, efforts have refocused on the provision of safe and efficient evacuation procedures, especially for occupants who cannot negotiate exit stairs without assistance. Several evacuation options
Piotr A. Domanski, Riccardo Brignoli, J S. Brown, Andrei F. Kazakov, Mark O. McLinden
The merits of an alternative refrigerant are established based on many attributes including environmental acceptance, chemical stability in the refrigeration system, low toxicity, flammability, efficiency and volumetric capacity. In an earlier work, these
Hidemi Omori, Erica D. Kuligowski, Steve Gwynne, Kathryn Butler
The purpose of this article is to provide guidance on enhancing human response to emergency communication. This guidance can, in turn, help engineers improve the design of emergency notification and messaging systems, which, as a result, can help inform
Steven Emmerich, Kevin Y. Teichman, Andrew Persily
In this paper, we summarize the results of field studies to evaluate the ventilation and indoor air quality (IAQ) performance in high-performance commercial (non-industrial, non-residential) buildings in North America. We show that the number of such
According to recent results of Planetary Boundary Layer research relevant to tall building design, for elevations of up to at least 1 km: (i) the longitudinal mean wind speeds are monotonically increasing with height, and (ii) veering angles are negligible
Isaac T. Leventon, Stanislav I. Stoliarov, Kevin T. Korver
In this work, experimental measurements of flame heat flux and sample mass loss rate are obtained as a flame spreads vertically upward over the surface of seven commonly used polymeric materials, two of which are glass reinforced composites. Using these
Nine full-scale fire experiments were conducted in two residential-scale structures to study how different fire fighting tactics, specifically horizontal, vertical, and positive pressure ventilation, affect the fire environment within a structure. The fire
The 4SIGHT computer code facilitates the performance assessments (PA) of nuclear waste and decommissioning facilities that employ concrete as the principal engineered barrier to isolate waste. Such facilities include those for Low Level Waste (LLW)
A three-dimensional model of the probe volume in duel-beam interferometry measurements was developed to evaluate the effect of laser beam alignment errors. Simulations of droplets passing randomly through the probe volume of a two-component duel-beam
This paper presents a method that uses Boolean logic to model complex logical constraints in a zero-one integer programming optimization. The article examines how the problem of inding a least-cost plan of compliance with building fire codes can be modeled
Jeffrey W. Gilman, R Haggenmueller, Sameer Rahatekar, Jeffrey Fagan, Jae H. Chun, Matthew Becker, Rajesh R. Naik, Todd Krauss, Lisa Carlson, Shana O. Kelley, Paul C. Trulove, D M. Fox, John Kadla
The application of single wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) in current and future applications crucially depends on the ability to process SWCNT in a solvent to yield high quality dispersions characterized by individual SWCNTs and possessing a minimum of SWCNT
This paper proposes a measure of the deviation between a nonlinear equation and its affine model, and demonstrates applications to nonlinear systems. The measure expresses the model error relative to a representative change in its predicted value