How Things Burn: Developing Realistic Models of How Materials Combust and Degrade in a Fire

• NCJ Number: 304071
• Date Published: February 2022
• Grant Number(s): 2016-DN-BX-0185
• Agencies: NIJ
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)
• Award: Determination of Material Property Input Data for Fire Modeling

Annotation

Researchers at Jensen Hughes, a fire safety company based in Baltimore, Maryland, supported by a National Institute of Justice grant, developed a framework that uses multi-objective optimization, which simultaneously determines several parameters that describe the physical and chemical changes to a material when it burns.

Abstract

Arson investigators rely on computer models to help predict how materials burn or degrade in a pyrolytic, or oxygen-free, environment that is common in intense residential fires. Those models depend on the input of accurate materials properties to allow the simulation to approximate what would happen in an actual fire. Researchers at Jensen Hughes, a fire safety company based in Baltimore, Maryland, supported by a National Institute of Justice grant, developed a framework that uses multi-objective optimization, which simultaneously determines several parameters that describe the physical and chemical changes to a material when it burns. “The research produced a validated methodology that practitioners can follow to determine material properties,” the final report said. It also provided a benchmark data set for future work.