Citation

Babrauskas V, Harris RH, Braun E, Levin BC, Paabo M, Gann RG. J. Fire Sci. 1991; 9(2): 125-148.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1991, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

A sizable number of bench-scale fire toxicity tests have been proposed over the last two decades. To date, no test method has successfully passed through the standards bodies ISO, ASTM, or BSI. The reasons are varied, but a major concern has been that none of the methods were seen to adequately predict the behavior of real, large-scale building fires. Such validation efforts have been held back both due to a shortage of good quality data, and because agreement had not been reached on the criteria for successful validation. NIST has now completed a pilot project to address both of these issues. In this study, several criteria for validation have been put forth. An initial data set has been compared against these criteria, comprising 2 bench-scale methods, 3 test materials, and a single real-scale fire scenario. The project results indicate that the course being pursued is appropriate, and provide illustrative performance data for the two bench-scale methods. The present project was a pilot study; further validation data will have to come from additional test materials and additional real-scale fire scenarios being examined. As a result of these studies, a factor-of-3 agreement between bench-scale and real-scale results was established as both useful and practical.