The new and improved NIST Dragon's LAIR (Lofting and Ignition Research) facility

SUMMARY Several studies suggest that the firebrands are a major cause of structural ignition of Wildland–Urban Interface fires in USA and Australia. For 40 years, past firebrand studies have focused on how far firebrands fly and do not assess the vulnerabilities of structures to ignition from firebrand showers. The development of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Dragon has allowed the quantification of structure ignition vulnerabilities of full-scale building assemblies. Full-scale tests are necessary to highlight vulnerabilities of structures to ignition under firebrand attack, whereas bench-scale test methods afford the capability to test new firebrand-resistant technologies and may serve as the basis for new standard testing methodologies. To this end, the present investigation was undertaken to construct a new and improved Dragon's Lofting and Ignition Research facility. This entailed removing the NIST Baby Dragon from the wind tunnel facility and inserting the new and improved NIST continuous feed Baby Dragon. The unique feature of the continuous feed Baby Dragon, over the current NIST Baby Dragon, is the capability to produce a constant firebrand shower in order to expose building materials to continual firebrand bombardment. The efficacy of the new experimental facility to determine ignition regime maps of building materials exposed to wind-driven firebrand showers is presented. Specifically, ignition regime maps are presented as a function of continuous firebrand generation rate, wind tunnel speed, and cedar moisture content. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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