The NIST Material Flammability Database

Published

May 1, 2024

Author(s)

Isaac Leventon, Morgan Bruns, Michael Heck

Abstract

7 The fire modeling community is actively working to develop the tools needed to quantitatively predict material 8 and product flammability behavior (e.g., ignition, burning rate, fire growth). Such predictions require accurate 9 and efficient simulation of the tightly coupled, time-dependent condensed- and gas-phase processes that control 10 the rate of fire growth. State-of-the-art fire models designed for these simulations also require a complete set 11 of input parameters (i.e., material properties) that describes: the reaction mechanism of the combustible solid, 12 the kinetics of these reactions, the thermodynamic properties of the components that are reacting, and the 13 relevant heat and mass transport properties. Currently, no single, comprehensive repository of pyrolysis model 14 parameters exists for all materials of interest, thus multiple experimental and analytical tools and techniques 15 are used to determine (i.e., "estimate" or "calibrate") these values. 16 To address this need, NIST has been developing1 a series of experimental and analytical tools to allow for the 17 calibration of these material properties of interest and the validation of their ability to predict flammability 18 response across a range of configurations and scales (i.e., 0D thermal decomposition of mg-scale samples, 1D 19 gasification and burning of g-scale/coupon sized slabs, and flame spread over walls up to 2.44 m tall). To date, 20 these tools have been used to characterize the burning behavior of a wide range of materials including synthetic 21 polymers and copolymers, fiber-reinforced composite materials, porous polymer foams, and natural- and 22 engineered-wood-products. Collectively, this set of materials includes a diverse array of chemistries and 23 burning behaviors (e.g., char formation, sooting tendency, and structural deformations due to melting, swelling 24 and/or intumescence). These calibration measurements2, analysis tools3-5, resulting material property sets, and 25 comparisons of experimental measurements6 and numerical simulations (Fire Dynamics Simulator, FDS) of 26 full-scale fire growth behavior (model validation) are maintained on the NIST Flammability Database (Fig. 1).

Conference Dates

October 21-27, 2023

Conference Location

Tsukuba, JP

Conference Title

IAFSS14

Pub Type

Conferences

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Keywords

fire model calibration, fire model validation, flammability, material property determination

Citation

Leventon, I. , Bruns, M. and Heck, M. (2024), The NIST Material Flammability Database, IAFSS14, Tsukuba, JP, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=956810 (Accessed November 20, 2024)