- Author
-
Duron, Z. H.
- Title
- Early Warning Capabilities for Firefighters: Testing of Collapse Prediction Technologies.
- Coporate
- Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA
- Sponsor
- National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD
- Report
-
NIST GCR 03-846
February 2003
39 p.
- Contract
- NIST-GRANT-60NANB0D0085
- Keywords
-
fire fighters
|
warning systems
|
building collapse
|
training
|
field tests
|
warehouses
|
structural collapse
|
structures
- Abstract
- This report details a two-year effort to develop and evaluate an early warning capability for firefighters to detect structural collapse in a burning structure. The methodology developed is based on monitoring vibrations in the structure induced by the fire and using these measurements to define indices that provide warning of impending collapse. Field test procedures and instrumentation were developed and shown to be effective in measuring structural vibrations during full-scale burn tests on wood and steel frame structures. Attempts to correlate measured responses with changes in structural behavior during burn have shown that trends in response magnitude, response statistics and in changing system parameters can all be used to track changing structural conditions leading to collapse.