The lab
The Fire Lab is located in the Frank White Annex and is comprised of a series of spaces that each house state of the art equipment.
There is sufficient space in the lab to allow multiple pieces of equipment and tests to run simultaneously – from small scale testing to larger scale calorimetry.
There are several extraction hoods. The demonstration hood allows medium scale experiments and classes to be conducted for students and visitors. The “flashover” box and “fire tornado” are particularly popular amongst our visitors.
The larger scale hood can accommodate a fire up to 2MW in size (roughly equivalent to a sofa fire). The exhaust for the large hood is equipped with a calorimetry system to allow the fire size to be measured as a function of time. This permits larger scale testing of composite materials to be conducted to determine their heat release rate.