Development of an Interactive Database of Contemporary Material Properties for Computer Fire Modeling
Mark B. McKinnon*, Daniel Madrzykowski, and Craig Weinschenk | Underwriters Laboratories Fire Safety Research Institute
Abstract: Fire models are commonly used extensively by fire and arson investigators to test hypotheses and improve the understanding of the fire dynamics involved in an incident. Recently, the most sophisticated of these models has improved such that a wide range of material properties are required to completely define the materials in these models. Underwriters Laboratories Fire Safety Research Institute has undertaken a project to measure all the properties required to completely define a material in a computational fire model for over 70 materials that were selected by a technical panel comprising academics, consultants, fire investigators, and firefighters. The database includes pyrolysis kinetics and energetics data, temperature-dependent specific heat capacity and thermal conductivity, milligram-scale and bench-scale heat release rate and burning rate data, large-scale calorimetry data, and optical property data. The database is hosted on a dedicated website that includes background information on experimental and analytical techniques and guidance on the use of the properties in models of various levels of sophistication. With these data, fire investigators have all the information required to conduct detailed analyses and test hypotheses involving the most common materials in the built environment. The presentation will cover conception of the experimental methods, population of the database, validation of the data sets, and navigation of the interactive site.