Materials used in the built environment specially in upholstered furniture in business and residential occupancies act as primary fuel load in fires. This is a cause of concern not only for the building developers but for fire investigators, fire researchers and fire modelers. NIJ Technology Working Group’s Operational Requirements for Fire and Arson Investigation have laid out research needs with respect to knowledge of the thermo-physical properties of materials that are common in the built environment. To fill the gaps that limit the analysis capability of fire investigators and engineers, one of the requirement outlined is of adequate material property data inputs for fire modeling as well as fire model validation.

The objectives of this study are to measure thermo-physical material properties of five materials viz. polyurethane foam, polyester batting, polyester fabric, medium density fiberboard and oriented strand board that are used in the built environment. Subsequently using the properties, model the response of these materials to fire using the condensed phase solver in the numerical solver Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) developed by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) with flame heat feedback application. Heat flow meter (HFM) and Integrating sphere were utilized to measure thermal conductivities and emissivity values for the materials. Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA), Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), Microscale Combustion Calorimetry (MCC) tests were carried out to develop a pyrolysis model and present reaction mechanism. Kinetic parameters were determined using inverse analysis with the Kinetics Neo (NETZSCH GmbH) software and the properties were used to populate the one-dimensional cone model. Flame heat feedback was applied to the model to determine the suitability of model to predict the heat release rate and compared against the cone calorimeter test data.