Fire Engineering has a small-scale fire laboratory and a medium-scale fire laboratory. The small-scale fire laboratory contains the Cone Calorimeter used for ignition, burning rate and flame spread measurements, the wind tunnel, a small-scale furnace and the ISO ignition apparatus.
The medium-scale fire laboratory contains the furniture calorimeter that can measure fires up to around 2 MW. Space is also available in the Civil and Natural Resources Engineering laboratories for specific projects.
The fire laboratories include instrumentation and data acquisition equipment used as needed for particular research and testing projects. Both the furniture and cone calorimeters are used for graduate laboratory classes as well as Masters and PhD research projects.
Research students also have access to a hot-disk apparatus to obtain solid material properties and DSC/TGA testing equipment for gas phase measurements.
Cone calorimeter
The cone calorimeter is used intensively to obtain ignition and burning rate data. Materials tested have included upholstered furniture foam and fabric combinations, various species of timber, manufactured wood products, gypsum wallboard, cables and metro train construction materials.
RIFT
The cone calorimeter was adapted to measure opposed flow flame spread by the apparatus referred to as the Reduced Scale Ignition and Flame spread Technique (RIFT). The RIFT is used to examine opposed flow flame spread over several species of New Zealand timber and timber products such as Beech, Rimu, Radiata Pine, Macrocarpra, Plywood, Particle board, Medium Density Fibreboard (MDF) and Laminated Veneer Lumber (LVL).
LIFT
The Lateral Ignition and Flame Transport (LIFT) test apparatus is a standard test method for obtaining ignition and flame spread properties. The LIFT test apparatus was built in-house and can be set up so that materials can be tested either in the vertical or horizontal orientation. Recent work has compared the results obtained from the RIFT and LIFT.
Wind tunnel
Students taking the Fire Safety Systems course, as well as Master's research students carrying out project work, use the wind tunnel. It was used to determine appropriate distributions of the Response Time Index (RTI) for a range of commercially available sprinklers. Measurement of the sprinkler conduction (C) factor has also been undertaken.
Small-scale furnace image
The small-scale furnace is used for testing structural timber connections under fire conditions. Internal connections using high-strength steel bars epoxy grouted into LVL members have been under development at the university and were assessed in the furnace.
Civil engineering laboratory
Atrium smoke control
An atrium 1/10 th scale model was built to study the effects of spill plumes. The model consisted of a supporting steel frame with ceramic fibre insulation boards attached. The model simulated a fire within a communicating space in an atrium building and consisted of two main units, the fire compartment and the smoke exhaust hood. Experiments investigated the entrainment of air into the spill plume in which a downstand and a balcony were present.
Water mist systems
A compartment and plenum space was designed to carry out experiments on the use of a water mist system with a displacement ventilation system. Fire tests were conducted to measure the effects of the water mist system on the compartment conditions.
ISO 5657 Ignition apparatus
The ISO 5657 ignition apparatus was used to obtain ignition and burning rate data on upholstered furniture foam and fabric combinations and various species of timber.
Furniture Calorimeter
The furniture calorimeter can be used to measure the rate of heat release of a variety of items such as furniture, piled stock or vegetation.
Computer resources
Students have access to a wide range of general computer applications and specialised fire modelling tools including:
- The SAFIR thermal and structural analysis program
- The Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) large eddy simulation CFD program
- Compartment zone modelling software such as CFAST, FPETool and BRANZFIRE
- The Simulex evacuation model
- @Risk Monte Carlo Simulation Package
- FDS modelling of the McLeans Island Road experiments
- Evacuation analysis using Simulex
Salt water fluid flow
The density difference between salt water and fresh water can be used to represent the flow of hot smoke in a compartment. Fire staff have been working with our colleagues in fluids to examine flows prior to backdrafts and fluids through ceiling vents. The fluids laboratory has extensive darkroom facilities and in-house expertise to support Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) and Particle Tracking Velocimety (PTV) measuring techniques.
