Fire Safety of Passenger Trains$ Phase III: Evaluation of Fire Hazard Analysis Using Full-Scale Passenger Rail Car Tests

摘要

A comprehensive multi-phase fire safety research program is being conducted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology to demonstrate the practicality and effectiveness of heat release rate-based test methods and hazard analysis techniques when applied to passenger train fire safety. This document presents the Phase III results of the program which focused on the real-scale evaluation of the fire hazard analysis techniques studied in Phase II of the project. Also included are comparisons of the real-scale test results with small- and full-scale test results conducted in the first two phases of the research. Comparison of times to untenable conditions for a range of fire sizes determined from these experimental measurements with those calculated by the CFAST fire model showed agreement which averaged approximately 13%. The range of ignition source strengths indicated that an ignition source size between 25 kW and approximately 200 kW is necessary to promote significant fire spread, which is consistent with the conclusions from earlier research that the ignition source strength of passenger rail car materials is 2 to 10 times greater than typical office furnishings.