Enabling the study of structure vulnerabilities to ignition from wind driven firebrand showers: A summary of experimental results

The NIST Firebrand Generator (NIST Dragon) is an experimental device that can generate a firebrand shower in a safe and repeatable fashion. BRI maintains one of the only full scale wind tunnel facilities in the world designed specifically for fire experimentation; the Fire Research Wind Tunnel Facility (FRWTF). The coupling of the NIST Firebrand Generator and BRI's FRWTF is leading to progress in assessing vulnerabilities of structures to a firebrand attack. A brief summary of key results to date using the NIST Dragon installed in the FRWTF are provided in this paper as well as a description of the new and improved NIST Dragon's LAIR (Lofting and Ignition Research) facility. The Dragon's LAIR is the only experimental facility capable of simulating continuous wind driven firebrand showers at bench scale. This paper marks the first occasion that all of these findings have been compiled to provide a complete story.

► First comprehensive summary of detailed firebrand studies using NIST Dragon. ► Vulnerabilities to full scale assemblies to firebrand showers presented. ► All results presented during 6 year BRI/NIST collaboration.