During a recent tour of Worcester Polytechnic Institute's new state-of the-art Fire Protection Engineering (FPE) Facility, researchers from the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center (NSRDEC) met with WPI Professor Nicholas Dembsey to discuss the emerging collaborative effort involving the work of Dr. Esther Kim. Kim is on an Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) fellowship with NSRDEC and will become a WPI Visiting Scholar, providing a framework for collaboration and sharing of laboratory facilities, equipment and high performance computing resources at WPI and NSRDEC.
Dembsey, whose role in this collaborative project is to provide guidance in the development of the material pyrolysis and fire dynamics modeling tools, explained, "The collaborative work between NSRDEC and WPI FPE focuses on developing new modeling tools which will enhance the protective fabric/clothing design process. These modeling tools involve computer simulation of material pyrolysis and standard test fire dynamics. It is expected that these tools will play an important role in efficient and effective screening of fabrics/clothing."
Dembsey said, "The role of Dr. Kim in this collaborative project is pivotal as she brings extensive modeling expertise to the project in terms of material pyrolysis and fire dynamics."
Kim's research is focusing on fire modeling of flame-resistant fabrics for protective clothing applications.
According to Kim, "Currently, my research is focused in two topics. First is to develop a kinetic model in a consistent manner for describing thermal decomposition of different fabrics, which can be used in a comprehensive pyrolysis model."
Kim added, "The second topic is to conduct computational modeling of the small-scale vertical flame test. This test is a critical go/no go test for determining whether a fabric may be considered flame resistant and self-extinguishing."
Research will benefit from the use of both organizations' facilities.
WPI's new facility has a collaborative education space for researchers and students to brainstorm and includes a fundamentals laboratory, a workshop space, and a large three-story burn room, which allows for the testing of two-story structures, giving researchers the ability to capture extremely accurate data.
NSRDEC's Tom Godfrey explained how NRSDEC will benefit from access to WPI's new facility, "We get access to experimental apparatus, such as the cone calorimeter, that we don't have at NSRDEC. Dr. Esther Kim is using the cone to characterize the response of Army fabrics to fire conditions. Also, we are using WPI computing resources to computationally model flame testing of fabrics. Eventually, NSRDEC will have access to fire modeling on Defense Department High Performance Computing resources once we get that capability established and benchmark it against results we obtain at WPI."
Future cooperative efforts may include WPI's use of NSRDEC?'s Ouellette Thermal Test Facility.
Regarding how WPI researchers may benefit from having access in the future to NSRDEC's Ouellette Thermal Test Facility, Godfrey said "This could be important for investigations at WPI that focus on personal protection -- firefighter gear for example. We have the standing manikin and
we have head and hand forms that can be used to test head gear and hand wear."
Godfrey explained some of the unique features of NSRDEC's facility, "We have a standing instrumented manikin on which we can perform ASTM F 1930 tests of protective garments. The test simulates flame engulfment conditions of a flash fire. Only four laboratories in North America can perform this test. We also are setting up a high intensity radiant heat test system based on a CO2 laser that is quite unique."
WPI will also benefit from NSRDEC expertise.
Dembsey said, "WPI FPE will benefit from NSRDEC's extensive experience in development of protective fabric/clothing. This provides an excellent practical context for the application of WPI FPE?'s extensive material pyrolysis and fire dynamics modeling experience. Both organizations benefit from this natural synergy."
According to Kim, the collaboration will be beneficial in a few ways, "The collaborative work between the FPE-WPI and NSRDEC will allow me to bring expertise from both parties to further enhance the understanding of the fire behaviors observed in various tests conducted at NSRDEC for FR fabrics. Having discussions with both parties provides opportunities to bring new ideas to my research as they have different viewpoints of the same problem."
Kim added, "Having access to WPI allows me to take some of the testing procedures that are commonly applied at FPE-WPI to understand materials' fire performances and apply it to FR fabric tests conducted at NSRDEC. For example, I have conducted several Cone Calorimeter tests at WPI with additional instrumentations for the FR fabric to gather data for fire modeling. This test is a well-known bench-scale calorimeter experiment that characterizes materials' burning behavior under a specified, constant radiant heat flux. The NSRDEC resources allow me to conduct various material characterizing tests such as measurements of thermal conductivity, specific heat capacity and more. All these information can come together to better model the fire behaviors of the fabrics."
All agree the collaboration and sharing of facilities will greatly benefit the warfighter.
"We need to provide our servicemen and servicewoman with protection against a variety of flame and thermal hazards on the battlefield: radiant flash from IED fireballs, secondary fires that are ignited by IEDs, vehicle fuel pool fires, to name a few," said Godfrey. "And that protection needs to be environmentally friendly, not excessive in cost, comfortable and durable. WPI brings in expertise in fire dynamics, fire modeling, and in materials response to fire that will enable NSRDEC to develop greatly improved protective garments."
Kim said, "Providing FR treated fabrics to the servicemen and women is important as they are the means of passive protection in situations where they are exposed to fire hazards. Understanding better about the fire behaviors of these fabrics will allow improvement to current paradigm of FR treatment or development of new textile materials with different FR treatments. Utilizing modeling to this research is useful in terms of having a tool in the designing stage that allows researchers to make changes to the material itself or the testing method, which can be done fairly easily and well-controlled compared with conducting actual experiments."
Dembsey, who has more than 25 years of scholarship and research related to fire behavior of materials, believes the nation's warfighters and eventually first responders will benefit from NSRDEC and WPI sharing expertise and facilities.
Dembsey stated "The future life safety of first responders and Soldiers will benefit from this collaborative project in terms of the enhanced fabric/clothing design process. A more efficient and effective design process will allow fabric/clothing to reach the market sooner."
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ABOUT NSRDEC'S OUELLETTE THERMAL TEST FACILITY:
The Ouellette Thermal Test Facility is a joint Army/Navy state-of-the-art facility designed to aid the research and development of improved clothing and equipment materials to better protect the individual Soldier. The facility enables researchers to evaluate and characterize the effect of flame and thermal threats on materials, ranging in size from research quantities to full-scale systems, under defined flame and thermal conditions. It also enables researchers to evaluate and analyze the thermal processes and combustion by-products of fuel burning equipment, including tent heaters, water heaters, and kitchen burners to provide optimum performance of equipment to improve quality of life.
The facility includes a large propane fuel cell and four laboratories and holds unique manikin systems to predict burn injuries.
NSRDEC is part of the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command, which has the mission to develop technology and engineering solutions for America's Soldiers.
RDECOM is a major subordinate command of the U.S. Army Materiel Command. AMC is the Army's premier provider of materiel readiness -- technology, acquisition support, materiel development, logistics power projection, and sustainment -- to the total force, across the spectrum of joint military
operations. If a Soldier shoots it, drives it, flies it, wears it, eats it or communicates with it, AMC provides it.
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