An Assessment of the National Institute of Standards and Technology Engineering Laboratory: Fiscal Year 2014 (2015)

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Fire Research Division

The Fire Research Division (FRD) develops, verifies, and utilizes measurements and predictive methods to quantify the behavior of fire and advances techniques to reduce the impact of fire on people, property, and the environment. The FRD strives to provide leadership for advancing the theory and practice of fire safety engineering, fire-fighting, fire investigation, fire testing, fire data management, and intentional burning.¹

The FRD consists of five staff groups—Fire Fighting Technology, Engineered Fire Safety, Flammability Reduction, Wildland-Urban Interface Fire, and the National Fire Research Laboratory (NFRL). The groups work in two main program areas: fire risk reduction in communities (with thrusts in fire service and wildland-urban interface) and fire risk reduction in buildings (with thrusts in residential safety and performance-based design).

TECHNICAL PROGRAMS

Fire Risk Reduction in Communities

Fire Service Thrust

The fire service thrust focuses on the development and communication of information to educate firefighters on safe and effective means to fight fires. Efforts include developing safer personal protective equipment, providing data for new codes and standards, supporting creation of new training materials and fire-fighting tactics, and communicating related information.

Accomplishments

The FRD has disseminated information on fire dynamics that can help protect firefighters. Through interaction with firefighter groups, the division has provided information on the fundamental physics of fire phenomena that has been incorporated into both basic and higher training levels of firefighter training.

Opportunities and Challenges

Significant work is still needed to change fire-fighting tactics to reduce deaths and injuries to firefighters during structural fire-fighting operations. This will require incorporating new understanding into science-based training documents and fire departments’ standard operating procedures. The NFRL and the FDS can help provide needed information. The FDS is a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling tool for simulating details of fire growth and heat release rates. By coordinating use of these

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¹ National Institute of Standards and Technology, “The Engineering Laboratory—Summaries of Our Activities, Accomplishments and Recognitions,” Gaithersburg, Md., July 2014.

two capabilities, there will be opportunities to conduct full-scale experiments while examining the limitations of ventilation openings and their impact on heat release rates.

An ongoing challenge for the FRD is to maintain and expand its communication of research findings to firefighters and fire-fighting organizations in a manner that effectively overcomes knowledge limitations pertinent to the dynamics of fire and relevant to the training of firefighters. The imposed travel limitations continue to make every experimental field deployment and effective interactions with stakeholders a significant challenge.

The general lack of facilities to conduct large-scale fire research has hampered research efforts, and even with the new NFRL, there are concerns about the long waiting list of projects, staffing, and funding.

Overall Assessment

The fire service thrust of the FRD has made progress toward the objective of improving the safety and effectiveness of firefighters through measurement science to advance suppression tactics, examine nontraditional means of fire suppression, and transfer the results to the fire service. The work has been accomplished despite the fact that the NFRL has been under renovation and expansion since 2010, limiting the use of the facility in 2010 and 2011 and severely curtailing most research from 2012 to 2014. Field experiments have been accomplished through outside funding opportunities, collaboration, and partnerships.

The efforts to communicate research findings on fire dynamics have generated a great deal of interest and discussion within the professional fire service community. Presentations, articles in the fire service print, and online media provide opportunities for fire service organizational involvement, and the use of social media has recently been explored.

Wildland-Urban Interface Fires Thrust

The WUI problem is growing at a very fast rate and may grow even faster as a result of climatic changes and an increase in the proximity between wildland and residential homes. Because the increasing frequency of this problem is relatively recent, there is not much information about its characteristics or the means to mitigate its consequences. Therefore, it is of high priority to collect data from WUI fires to underpin standards and codes for fire-hardening structures located in WUI-prone-areas.

Accomplishments

The FRD has been addressing the WUI fire problem since 2007. Field studies, which included several large WUI fires (the 2007 Witch fire in California, the 2011 Amarillo fire in Texas, and the 2012 Waldo fire in Colorado) resulted in reports describing the impact of the wildfires on communities, with an emphasis on structures. The reports include information on the development of WUI fires, including the role of fire spotting by embers and the resulting propagation of the fire. Case studies to date suggest that ignition by transported embers may account for 50 percent of the structural ignitions in a WUI fire. Recognizing this from field studies, FRD laboratory studies have concentrated primarily on the ignition of structures by showers of embers. This issue, the ignition of surfaces by embers, has not been well studied, and a FRD project is introducing new approaches and technologies to study this issue. For example, the FRD has developed a tool (Dragon) that produces embers in a controlled fashion; it has facilitated the study of ember ignition of structures. Different versions of the Dragon have been developed at NIST and at other laboratories in the United States and abroad.

Significant results of the project include those from studies on the ignition of roofs by embers. These studies involved observing the importance of penetration of embers into attics through air vents, and the ignition of external surfaces by accumulation of embers in corners and crevices. Identification of

these primary causes of fire propagation has led to specific recommendations for changes in vent design. The information obtained in the project is being disseminated effectively and has already resulted in the implementation of improvements to the construction of air vent design of structures.

Opportunities and Challenges

The FRD has acquired extensive experience and knowledge by studying indoor fires in structures, from prevention to suppression. This experience provides a unique opportunity to develop approaches for reducing the building damage from WUI fires. The NFRL could address issues related to the WUI problem, particularly with respect to the hardening of external surfaces of structures to prevent ignition by radiant and convective heating from flames, and ignition by embers, or combined action from these two sources. Wind simulation capabilities may be adapted by NFRL for that purpose.

The lack of a wind tunnel capable of real-scale fire experiments at NIST limits the study of ember ignition to idealized situations. This problem is being addressed by conducting the experiments in a wind tunnel in Japan, although this reduces the productivity of the study. Modeling the transportation of embers and their ignition capability would create predictive models that include risk mitigation. Future research could consider the increased propensity for ignition when a surface is exposed to heat flux or when embers are deposited on preheated surfaces.

A reasonable, though modest, effort has been conducted in computer modeling of WUI fires primarily by applying the FDS software. However, since the WUI problem has characteristics that are different from those of indoor fires, modifications may be needed in the FDS for its application to WUI fires. Given its expertise, the FRD is well-qualified to extend FDS to WUI fires. Collaboration with other services, such as the U.S. Forest Service, will be helpful in calibrating source terms of heat and embers produced by the vegetation in various combustion conditions.

Unfortunately, the number of studies of recent wildland fires has been reduced due to restrictions in travel funding and limited personnel resources; and so only a few such cases have been examined carefully. This is a missed opportunity to develop and share needed information that would help in further understanding of the WUI fire problem, protecting citizens, and optimizing the action of firefighters at the interface. This information would be very useful for the development of WUI models and the standardization of structures resistant to external fires.

Overall Assessment

The FRD has begun to have an impact on the WUI fire problem, but there remains much more work, including the creation of standard methods for studying the problem. To make a stronger impact in this rapidly growing disaster arena, the FRD will need additional mobile data acquisition equipment and flexible staff to collect data on real fire scenarios, as well as new wind facilities at the NFRL, to validate the findings of existing, yet limited, small-scale laboratory studies.

Fire Risk Reduction in Buildings

Residential Safety Thrust

The governing objective of this thrust is to reduce deaths, injuries, and property losses in residences through application of measurement science, with recent focus on cigarettes, mattresses, smoke alarms, and upholstered furniture. The main topics are evaluation of innovative processes, technologies, and materials to improve the fire performance of materials and other products; smoke detection through innovative systems and improvement of smoke alarms in dwellings; and guidance on upholstered furniture.

Accomplishments

In general, the teams have very high levels of competence, and the individuals are internationally recognized scientists in their areas of expertise. Participation of the teams in the development of standardization and codes at the national level is adequate.

The FRD has conducted valuable and timely research on the effectiveness and possible toxicity of flame retardants for upholstered furniture.

The smoke toxicity project has been completed, but its implications for performance-based designs have not yet been determined. Research on smoke detection is adequate, and the FRD has made good contributions to standardized testing procedures.

The work on development of standards for reducing the propensity of cigarettes to ignite other materials has had worldwide impact and has been incorporated in codes and regulations for all U.S. states, in Europe, and in many other countries. The FRD recently proposed a modification to the ASTM standard for measuring the ignition propensity of cigarettes.

The FRD team’s knowledge of uncertainties calculation and traceability through metrology is very useful, and it is important that this knowledge be disseminated to the fire science community.

Opportunities and Challenges

The selection of projects is well performed, but the number of projects jointly performed with other divisions could be increased; it is likely that this would increase their impact. For example, studies on chemical health and safety could be performed collaboratively with studies on fire behavior of upholstered furniture.

The team has the facilities that could be used to develop needed scaling procedures for experiments and modeling of fires. The group would benefit from and have greater impact through increased coordination with the international community.

The staff is highly competent, but some (e.g., guest researchers and postdoctoral researchers) are not permanent, and others may be approaching retirement. The retention and/or expansion of key competences require management attention.

The FRD’s work on upholstered furniture in U.S. dwellings could benefit from comparing it with European research and standards in railway transportation furniture.

Overall Assessment

The work on fire risk reduction is performed at a very good overall scientific level, and the topics are well developed. Some improvements are needed in dissemination and resource management, and in travel funding.

Performance-Based Design Thrust

The broad goals for the performance-based design thrust include developing and validating modeling tools to predict the evolution of fire and ensuing hazards and the development of performance-based methods to predict and evaluate fire behavior of steel and concrete structures. The latter includes delivery of validated and improved tools, guidance, and draft standards for the fire resistance design and assessment of structures.

The FRD has led the field in the creation of widely used tools for modeling the growth and evolution of fires. Two codes are available, the FDS and the Consolidated Model of Fire and Smoke Transport (CFAST). The CFAST is a two-zone fire model that is used to estimate the combustion products in a building. CFAST was originally developed in the 1980s and is still used today by fire protection engineers for buildings with relatively simple geometries because of its rapid computing times.

In particular, CFAST has been verified and validated by the U.S Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the DOE for use by the nuclear utilities and DOE safety professionals.

Accomplishments

The NIST team continues to update the capabilities of the FDS and so continues to enjoy its position as the primary reference for fire simulation methods. Interactions with FMGlobal in their development of the FireFOAM modeling software will continue to expand opportunities for advancement of the FDS tool. Citations of FDS exceeded 1,000 in 2013. NIST has released a new version, FDS 6, which is more stable and has better parallel processing capabilities and better physics-based submodels describing fire and radiation phenomena.

In the structures area, EL staff have published best practices guidelines for structural fire resistance design; created a model for mechanical properties of steel at elevated temperatures (including material strengths, methods for analysis, and information on load combinations and required strengths) that has been accepted for balloting by an applicable American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) committee; created an integrated tool that transfers fire modeling results to thermal analysis tools and then enables structural analyses; created a temperature-dependent material modeling approach for finite element models that include element erosion and empirical data on plastic-strain-based failures; developed an understanding of the behavior and failure modes of steel shear; and written an appendix of recommended procedures for performance-based design of structures for fire effects, with 10 of 12 sections successfully balloted (as of July 2014) for inclusion into ASCE standards.

Opportunities and Challenges

The FDS modeling team has developed new stretch goals. The major goal is to couple three types of complex code—gas-phase fluid dynamics and reaction, thermal transport to and through solid structures, and failure of solid structures under load and thermal stress. There are few examples of such undertakings in the literature. This is a significant undertaking that will require efforts in computation, extensive validation, and interpretation of results. Increased access to computational facilities and experimental data for validation will also be required.

This new capability would enable fire-structure interactions, treatment of immersed boundaries, adaptive mesh refinement, and better physics-based, fully coupled pyrolysis models to compute online heat release rates from a variety of burning materials.

There are no science-based measurement procedures for evaluating the performance of an entire building structure under load or for realistic fire scenarios. This lack of information represents an opportunity for the FRD to make important contributions to this field.

Overall Assessment

The availability of open source access to FDS with documentation that is reasonably easy to use has been a valuable contribution to the community. Development of new FDS capabilities needs to be continued, with expected requirements for increased computer resources and staff expertise. Updates to CFAST are needed; it is a useful tool but is becoming outdated.

The FRD is beginning to have an impact on areas relating to steel properties under stress and failure mechanisms. However, much remains to be explored. This area will be evolving over the next several years as new data and understanding are acquired from the NFRL, with expectations for providing the underlying data for new codes, standards, and industry-accepted material property models.

National Fire Research Laboratory

The near-term objectives of this effort are to complete the construction and commissioning of the NFRL and to develop plans for the early test series for the new laboratory.

Accomplishments

The NFRL is anticipated to be an exciting new facility for the FRD and the EL. Much progress has been made in its preparation for testing. It will provide a unique capability to assess the impact of fire heating of structures under structural load. By designing and constructing this facility, the FRD team has broken new ground. With foresight and assistance from external experts, capabilities, metering systems, and roadmaps for the program have been developed. The multi-staged commissioning plan ensures that the system well be calibrated and ready for use in the near future.

Opportunities and Challenges

The ability to test stress on structures under realistic gravity loads while exposed to fires is an exciting new capability. The community expects that findings from these tests will define new (fire-safe) building requirements.

Just as fire phenomena and related damage do not scale with fire size, neither will the planning nor the resource requirements. The team has relatively little experience with such long-term planning. A commissioning plan is established, but the team needs to refine specific plans for the series of tests for the year or two following commissioning. The team has been concentrating on finishing construction and taking delivery of the completed facility. Construction and commissioning obstacles that continue to delay the date on which fire tests can be initiated need to be overcome.

Full utilization and interpretation of data will partly depend on the availability of the fully coupled FDS code. Efforts on the evolution of the NFRL and the new FDS capabilities need to be closely coordinated.

Overall Assessment

The NFRL team has done an excellent job in designing and preparing to create a new fire test facility that will be unmatched worldwide. This is a very significant accomplishment. The FRD needs to continue its efforts and to work with the contractors to complete delivery so that the commissioning process can start. Because of the long-term planning requirements for this large facility, it may be prudent to hold a planning session to review its capabilities and specific goals for testing. Such an activity would help to prioritize tests to be completed early and to identify resource needs and possible partners in executing or funding the work. It is important to consider international participation.

Overall Assessment

Over the past several years, the FRD has had a significant impact on science, codes and standards, tools, and firefighter training and tactics. A focus of its efforts is on measurements of fire-related phenomena and identification of controlling processes. This information in turn has been used by industry and practical engineers to create new and revised codes that are based upon FRD-developed science and solid engineering principles. The FRD team participates in or contributes to approximately 30 different committees that develop fire codes and standards for a broad range of applications.

The FRD has been using its expertise to teach fire phenomena and their implications to firefighters. Staff have translated their scientific understandings into simple engineering principles and clear, practical language. These understandings have been instrumental in developing new fire-fighting training materials (with specific reference to NIST for guidance), which are now helping to provide safer and more effective strategies and tactics for engaging a fire.

The FRD team has completed and released a new version of the FDS modeling tool, which has been widely adopted by the engineering community. They provide full documentation and responsive user support. The modeling tool is now in use regularly for performance-based design, for design and development of more effective fire protection and fire-fighting products, and for use in litigation and incident investigation. Papers documenting prior versions of this tool have been cited more than 1,000 times.

The division has evaluated failure mechanisms for the facepiece lens of a self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) used by firefighters to enable close encounters with fire under extreme conditions such as high temperatures, insufficient oxygen, and noxious gases. Multiple failures previously resulted in firefighter deaths. Through a careful evaluation of the thermal environment, infrared energy absorption, and materials, the FRD has assisted in the development of new technologies to replace these lenses, which are now being implemented throughout the country.

Frequency of WUI fires has been rising nearly exponentially over the past 20 years, caused by increased building of homes and communities in wildland areas. The fire phenomena and threats posed by such events are drastically different from those posed by interior building fires, due to fast moving flames of WUI fires, the lack of exterior fire protection, and the jumping of flames from the leading fire line due to ember transport. Approximately 50 percent of the home fires occurring during WUI fires are caused by firebrands. New standards and procedures for protection of homes are required, including regulation of materials and better methods for fire protection and fire-fighting from external sources.

Firebrands or embers, produced in wildland fires near urban areas, jump the fire line and can be transported thousands of feet to start fires in homes well removed from the main fire. As a step toward understanding and then minimizing the impact of such transported embers, the FRD has developed a standardized process called Dragon to create such firebrands so that experiments can be conducted in a controlled, repeatable manner. Dragon is now being utilized in the United States and in several places around the world.

Burning upholstered furniture accounts for a large fraction of the initial heat release in home fires. The FRD has helped to develop new technologies and standards in this area, but continued research is needed.

The impact of new data from the NFRL will be enhanced significantly when they are coupled with the FDS fluid/fire modeling capability for structures under load. Much data is expected to be collected, and interpretation of the data and controlling processes will be facilitated by developing and utilizing advanced modeling techniques. Creation of such tools is under way at the FRD and with partners, but significant work will still be needed to validate and to learn from such tools.

The technical program developed and executed by the FRD has had great impact, in that its measurements have supported the creation of new standards and codes based on fundamental science and engineering principles, provided the foundation for creation of new fire-fighting training materials and tactics, developed technologies for life safety equipment, created and distributed widely used fire modeling tools, and invented a standard procedure for generating firebrands.

PORTFOLIO OF SCIENTIFIC EXPERTISE

Accomplishments

The FRD covers a wide range of expertise in fire science, from combustion dynamics to firefighter tactics that include competence in experimentation, modeling, and computational methods. The

scientific and engineering knowledge residing within this division covers materials and products for building interiors (upholstered furniture, smoke alarms) and construction. The staff are well aware of the need to simplify and extend science and engineering principles to practical applications.

Serving as a bridge between fire science and fire-fighting communities, FRD staff have translated scientifically based content into training materials for firefighters and specifications for their equipment.

FRD staff continue to play a major role in the creation of new and significant capabilities for the modeling of fires. Their efforts include the two-zone fire model (CFAST) and the FDS, both of which are widely used and are considered primary references for fire modeling. The development team includes mathematicians and fire scientists and benefits from the experience of a wide community of users around the world. The management by FDS developers with international feedback contributes to the success of the FDS.

The expertise in model evaluation and uncertainty calculation is excellent. The team excels in the assessment of uncertainties, which is critical in the use of numerical schemes and for the evaluation of validation data sets. The continued support of the Statistical Engineering Division of the NIST Information Technology Laboratory is essential for enabling such capabilities.

The division’s scientific expertise in development of test methods, standards and codes, and reference materials is impressive and covers all aspects of fire. The level of scientific expertise associated with work performed on fire toxicity and on evacuation is very high. This strong expertise is needed to allow a proper introduction of these elements to physics-based design.

The understanding of WUI fire phenomena has been increasing over the past few years. Analyses of wildland fires have been completed, a risk scale has been created, and a new standardized test method for generating firebrands has been developed. However, further efforts are needed on WUI modeling.

The scientific expertise in structural assessment in fires is developing but needs further work if the FRD is to be fully established as a world leader in this area. The completion and utilization of the NFRL and new improvements to FDS will enhance the experimental and computational aspects, respectively.

Growth of scientific expertise at the FRD, through interactions with faculty and students, is enhanced by university collaboration. A critical part of the FRD strategy for managing expertise is to bring in fresh ideas from the outside. Guest researchers and postdoctoral researchers are a source of new ideas and competences, and they are an excellent potential source of future staff.

Scientific management includes the organization of regular seminars and presentations from visiting scientists. This approach helps to keep staff informed on advances to the state of the art and changing needs.

There continues to be significant collaboration between the FRD and other NIST divisions (e.g., the Material and Structural Systems Division within the EL and the NIST Material Measurement Laboratory, Physical Measurement Laboratory, and Information Technology Laboratory) as well as with academia, codes and standards organizations, government agencies, the construction industry, manufacturers, the structural and engineering design community, testing laboratories, and the fire service. Some examples of organizations involved in these research partnerships include the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the Government Services Administration (GSA), the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the NFPA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the U.S. Fire Administration (USFA), Underwriters Laboratories (UL), the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), the Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE), Boeing, U.S. Gypsum, DuPont, and the fire departments of New York City, Los Angeles County, Chicago, San Diego, Colorado Springs, and many others. The Fire Grants and Cooperative Agreements program continues to support research with seven projects ongoing in 2014, although support has been significantly diminished relative to historic levels.

Opportunities and Challenges

The FRD competences cover all aspects of fire science but focus on fires in buildings. This focus is understandable. However, the division would benefit from expanding the field of application to areas such as industry, transportation, or wildlands. This would provide a more global overview and offer increased opportunities for collaboration (including with other federal agencies) and information sharing; it might also contribute to the development of solutions to FRD’s building-focused concerns.

The NIST competence in structural fire behavior has been developing recently, mainly as a consequence of the reconstruction efforts in identifying root causes for the collapse of the World Trade Center. This expertise will increase in future years in parallel with the development and utilization of the NFRL. One step toward enlisting international peers in this learning process was the NIST-CIB Roadmapping Workshop in May 2014. The workshop results were used by the EL to inform a set of proposals for new activities at the NFRL. Through these developments, the competences of the team for assessing non-linear structural properties of construction materials and assemblies will rapidly grow. The team decided to start with steel, which is the best known material in terms of thermal and mechanical properties and the methods to reduce the uncertainties in testing and modeling connections between steel beams. Concrete and timber are more challenging materials for future study, because of spalling and pyrolysis, respectively. The scientific expertise may be adapted according to these future developments and the increased use of the NFRL. To support this development, competence in advanced thermomechanical modeling may need to be increased in parallel with the associated experimental competence.

The mapping and management of key competences could also be improved. There is only a partially formalized identification of existing competences, and there is an efficient management of resources only in the short term. Better definition of medium- and long-term competences is needed. Maintenance of competences is vulnerable to the retirement or departures for other reasons of experts. In some cases, critical technologies have only one technical staff member at the senior expert level. A system with at least two senior experts per key competence, plus at least one junior expert, would limit the risk. This mapping of competences is an essential tool for mitigating risk relative to the adequacy of scientific competences. Mapping of participation to key scientific and engineering communities (e.g., membership in organizations such as the International Association for Fire Safety Science [IAFSS] or the SFPE) is also not formalized.

Increased collaboration with the USFS would enhance understanding of the variables affecting WUI fire impact on communities, such as vegetation, topography, and weather-related parameters (e.g., temperature, humidity, and wind).

Using guest and postdoctoral researchers is an approach well adapted to filling gaps and providing fresh perspectives and also to modulating fluctuations in funding. Nevertheless, the FRD needs to be able to assimilate the knowledge of such researchers before their departure, because unless permanently hired they are not sustainable resources.

Overall Assessment

The level of scientific competence is excellent, with risks associated with limited resources (e.g., number of experts per key competence). A review of existing competences, specifically for medium- and long term-needs, could be improved and would support full and effective utilization of the new NFRL.

FACILITIES, EQUIPMENT, AND HUMAN RESOURCES

Accomplishments

The FRD has a long history of fire research in well-established facilities. The facilities are composed of laboratories and large-scale testing facilities. Although some of the laboratories are showing signs of age and there are variations among the different laboratories, overall the experimental apparatus and equipment in these laboratories appear adequate.

The computer facilities of the FRD appear adequate for modeling development. However, validation of FDS for large and WUI fires as well as structural load evaluations will likely require access to larger computing systems.

The new robot testing center for evaluating and setting standards for the robots used in search-and-recovery missions is a good first step in this area of research. Testing the robots in actual fire-fighting testing facilities would be valuable.

The large-scale testing facilities have been one of the strengths of the FRD because they have permitted the testing of fires up to 10 MW. Testing of large-scale fires is important because properties of fire and its impact do not scale linearly with fire size. In this regard the previous facilities were limited in their applicability because they were not capable of handling relatively large fires. The expanded NFRL provides unique measurement capabilities to study larger fires (up to 20 MW continuously, 30 to 40 MW peak) and their impact on the performance of relatively large structures and surfaces under structural load. Together, the new facility and the legacy facility represent versatile capability not replicated anywhere. It will allow testing of different size fires and consequently help address the issue of fire scaling and the impacts of fire on structures under load.

Opportunities and Challenges

Long-term planning for program and project goals and resources for NFRL activities will be important to ensure that all portions of the program are balanced and consistent with division goals.

For WUI, there is a need for additional human and equipment resources. Postfire data collection and analysis in actual fires is an important component in the study of WUI, because conditions cannot be duplicated in a laboratory. The FRD has been very successful studying a few large WUI fires, but limited resources have curtailed the study of recent fires. There is a need to allocate resources and to expand the mobile measurement capability for field studies. Laboratory testing is primarily limited to the study of ignition of building components by embers. Although this work is unique and has great impact, the lack of wind facilities and the need to conduct testing in Japan limits the productivity of the project.

Overall Assessment

NIST is developing some exciting new facilities in the NFRL. There are large expectations for this new facility with its unmatched capabilities. Other laboratories and equipment elsewhere within the facility appear adequate. Construction of a fire test facility with cross-wind capability needs to be considered.

DISSEMINATION OF OUTPUTS

Accomplishments

The FRD has published more than 240 papers since 2010, including scientific peer-reviewed research, conference presentations, and NIST technical notes and special publications. The publications address topics such as fire behavior in structures, simulation and modeling, and evaluation criteria. There have been thousands of citations and use of these papers during the same time period.

The FDS, now in version 6, has more than 1,500 documented users for this open source program. It is reported that there have been significant reductions of fire protection costs through the use of the FDS and CFAST models.

In the area of fire and smoke detection, the FRD has provided information that has helped determine the technical basis for smoke and fire detector metrics and end use, resulting in changes to codes and standards to specify smoke detector location in homes and to require nuisance metrics and a methodology for measuring nuisance resistance.

Work in flame-resistant technologies has enabled a regulation that pertains to smoldering ignition of furniture and a fire-resistant coating for foam that reduces the fire hazard of furniture beyond any other commercial solution. The division is providing technical guidance to the CPSC on testing methodologies and performance metrics for barrier fabrics.

The FRD continues to participate in standards committees to incorporate recommendations from investigations and research. The NFPA, ASTM, ISO, UL, and the International Code Council (ICC) are examples of this involvement across a broad spectrum of national and international code committees.

The FRD-developed Dragon for firebrand generation has been disseminated and adopted worldwide for use in WUI research.

The research in partnership with NIOSH, NFPA, and fire service organizations resulted in the redesign of the standard on Open-Circuit Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus (SCBA) facepiece and new testing requirements defined in the NFPA SCBA for Emergency Services.

Fire dynamics information has been included in the International Fire Service Training Association (IFSTA) Essentials of Fire Fighting, and a fire dynamics addendum is being published for Fundamentals of Fire Fighter Skills. These books are the primary documents used in training entry-level firefighters in the United States.

Changes resulting from FRD’s fire dynamics research have been incorporated into the NFPA Standard on Live Fire Training Evolutions, Standard on Fire Service Respiratory Protection Training, Standard on Thermal Imaging Training, and Standard on Training for Initial Emergency Scene Operations.

Based on research conducted by the FRD and the UL, revisions to practical fire training materials have been developed. For example, the Fire Department of New York City (FDNY) issued new procedures on ventilation, private dwellings, brownstones, and wind-impacted fires, and the Los Angeles County Fire Department has developed a series of training videos.

The FRD has also established a social media Twitter account (@NIST_Fire) to disseminate information to firefighters.

Presentations on fire dynamics to fire service organizations and conferences have ranged in class size from 100 to 2,500; 36 presentations were conducted in 2013 and 2014.

The following have been disseminated electronically in collaboration with stakeholders and partners: a “Science in the Big Room” Webinar during a Fire Department Instructors Conference; a DVD on fire dynamics; a Webinar entitled “The Changing Severity of Home Fires: Research to Empower a Fire Service Response” for the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC); an Internet portal containing information on firefighter safety through advanced research (FSTAR); a video entitled “Time to Survival” for the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF); an Internet fire ground survival course; an Internet course on single family dwelling fires with the FDNY and the International Society of Fire Service Instructors; and an Internet course on scientific research for the development of more effective

tactics, for the UL Firefighter Safety Research Institute; and an Illinois Fire Service Institute (IFSI) video on the principles of modern fire attack—Size Up, Locate the Fire, Isolate the Flow Path, Cool from a Safe Distance, Extinguish, and then Rescue and Salvage (SLICE-RS).

Opportunities and Challenges

The NIST website and use of social media provide an opportunity for outreach and dissemination of research, with a particular emphasis on reaching firefighters on the topics of fire dynamics and tactics. There are opportunities for other groups within the FRD to utilize social media as well. This has been challenging due to Department of Commerce constraints on the use of social media and the required shutdown of direct access to the www.fire.gov website, which has been incorporated into the NIST website, www.nist.gov/fire. The absence of a forwarding link from the fire.gov website has significantly reduced in the number of times the site has been accessed. This situation needs to be corrected.

NIST needs to continue to expand the use of social media as a form of outreach. The Twitter account @NIST_Fire is an effective tool, but use of social media could be expanded to include sites on Facebook and YouTube. All of the NIST videos could be readily available online and through social media sites.

Overall Assessment

The FRD has engaged effectively with standards and codes committees at the national level, but there has been limited involvement at the international level due to funding limitations. There are a good number of external peer-reviewed publications and NIST reports. Metrics on the quality of the publications were not available, and publications were not characterized by technology areas. The division has provided excellent communication to fire-fighting communities through presentations, conferences, and partnerships with national organizations and fire departments, with resulting impacts on training and tactics. NIST is constrained by Department of Commerce rules on the dissemination of information utilizing social media. There has been excellent dissemination of and support for the open-source FDS, resulting in its widespread use nationally and internationally. Travel restrictions have constrained the division’s ability to disseminate its work.

FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The efforts of the FRD staff to identify critically important research topics guided by the use of the division’s roadmap and project planning process to ensure maximal impact of its resources are commendable. The division has prioritized research goals to meet the measurement science, standards, and technology needs of the U.S. building and fire safety communities.

The impact of the technical program executed by the FRD has been significant. The division has made measurements to support the creation of new standards and codes, provided the foundation for new fire-fighting training materials and tactics, developed technologies for life safety equipment (e.g., the SCBA lens), developed new standards for flammability or smoldering of materials and for fire and smoke detection, created and distributed fire modeling tools, created new models for material properties at elevated temperatures and recommendations for designing new buildings, and invented a standard procedure (Dragon) for generating firebrands.

The scientific expertise in development of test methods, toxicity, evacuation procedures, standards and codes, and reference materials is impressive and covers all aspects of fire. The scientific and stakeholder knowledge residing within this division covers materials and products for the interior (upholstered furniture and smoke alarms), building construction, and fire-fighting needs.

There continues to be strong participation in various standards committees to support incorporation of recommendations from investigations and research. Organizations such as the NFPA, ASTM, ISO, UL, and the ICC are examples of this involvement across a broad spectrum of national and international code committees, although interactions with international partners appear to have weakened in recent years, mainly owing to travel restrictions. It is important that the FRD continue executing a well-planned, diverse program to support development of and delivery to the United States of new standards for the protection of life and property.

Laboratories and equipment within the legacy portion of the FRD appear adequate. However, in some cases, the equipment is old and nearly outdated. Despite this constraint, the FRD staff have done a good job of producing usable results with the equipment they have. During the next year or two, the FRD needs to review its equipment needs and update hardware where appropriate. The division has done an excellent job of designing and creating a new fire test facility, the NFRL. There are large expectations for this new facility with its capabilities that are not found elsewhere. By allowing the testing of different size fires, the NFRL will help address fire scaling and the impacts of fire on structures under load. The FRD has assembled external expertise to help identify needed capabilities and metering systems and create roadmaps for the NFRL. In addition, the division has developed a multistaged commissioning plan to ensure that the NFRL system is well calibrated and ready for use.

While the commissioning plan has been developed, the team needs to start soon on the creation of specific plans for the series of tests for the first year or two following commissioning. Such a planning activity is likely to result not only in prioritizing tests to be completed early but also in identifying resource needs and possible partners in executing or funding the work. It would be beneficial to consider international participation. Long-term planning for program and project goals and resources for NFRL activities will be important to ensure that other portions of the program are not jeopardized. The NFRL can provide a focus for coordination of many of the activities of the FRD.

The FRD staff are well aware of the need to simplify and extend science and engineering principles to practical applications and execute such tasks competently and professionally. For example, new fire-fighting training materials refer specifically to NIST for guidance and are enabling more effective strategies and tactics for engaging a fire. The interest generated by the FRD for new information and guidelines needs to be maintained. Continued outreach through all forms of communication and education will be critical. The FRD would benefit by expanding its use of social media as a form of outreach.

The FRD has started recently to address the WUI problem with field and laboratory studies and computer modeling. Although the studies conducted are excellent, limited resources have restricted their potential impact on the WUI community. Significant results have been produced by studies on the ignition of roofs by embers, the penetration of embers into the attics through the air vents, and the ignition of external surfaces by accumulation of embers in corners and crevices.

The FRD needs to strengthen research in the WUI fire arena. New standards and procedures for protection of homes are required, including regulation of materials and better methods for fire protection and fighting fires from external sources. Because test conditions cannot be readily replicated in the laboratory, there is a need to put additional human and equipment resources at NIST’s disposal so it can collect data under actual WUI events. Additional trained staff that can be mobilized quickly are needed to effectively engage the limited field equipment to which NIST has access. It is important that the FRD continue work to establish guidelines for protection of homes in WUI areas.

Modifications to the FDS modeling approaches may be needed for application in WUI fires. Collaboration with the USFS could be increased to create a better understanding of WUI fire impact on communities, considering such factors as vegetation, topography, and weather-related parameters (temperature, humidity, and wind).

The design and construction of a fire test facility with cross-wind capability would be a valuable addition to the FRD facility suite.

The FRD could increase the impact of its work through increased coordination with the international community and international standardization. As an example, work on upholstered furniture in U.S. dwellings could benefit by examining European research, recommendations, and standards in the area of railway transportation. For research and products for upholstered furniture, the role of the FRD is essential in determining the effectiveness and possible toxicity of flame retardants. The work on development of standards on reducing ignition propensity of cigarettes has had worldwide impact. The FRD has monitored and contributed to ISO standards for the tests.

The FRD team has completed and released a new open-source version of the FDS modeling tool, widely adopted by the engineering community. They provide full documentation and responsive user support. The FRD has created a new set of goals for the next version of FDS, to include fire—structure interactions, treatment of immersed boundaries, adaptive mesh refinement, and better physics-based and

fully coupled pyrolysis models to compute online heat release rates from a variety of burning materials. These goals are appropriate.

Development of new FDS capabilities needs to be continued and may require increases in computer resources and staff. The FRD’s proposed updates to CFAST will be valuable for this useful tool, which is becoming outdated.

FRD has made significant progress over the past several years in the relatively new structures area, providing new guidelines for structural fire-resistant design, new models of high-temperature properties, an understanding of failure mechanisms, and new recommendations for performance-based design of structures that include fire effects.

Continued work on material properties under stress and on failure mechanisms is needed to provide the underlying data for new codes, standards, and industry-accepted material property models. In parallel, FRD’s competences in structural fire behavior need continued development, specifically in advanced thermomechanical modeling and associated experimental methods. These areas are outside the normal expertise required for fire research.

The imposed travel limitations make experimental field deployment a significant challenge, hinder the ability to interact with colleagues at both the national and international levels, and negatively affect the division’s ability to disseminate its work.

The expertise in model evaluation and uncertainty calculations across the division’s activities is appropriate. The support of the Statistical Engineering Division of the NIST Information Technology Laboratory is essential to the enablement of such capabilities.

Since 2000, FRD staff have published more than 240 papers, including in peer-reviewed scientific publications, conference presentations, NIST technical notes, and special publications. The program allowing guest researchers and postdoctoral researchers to work at the FRD is utilized well as a source of new ideas and competences and is an excellent source for assessing potential staff. The fire grants program and cooperative agreements continue to support research, although external contract support to universities by NIST has diminished, according to FRD staff.

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