United States Department of Transportation
i
Fire Safety of Passenger Trains: Phase I: Material Evaluation (Cone Calorimeter)
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1999-01-01
[PDF-5.41 MB]
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Abstract:As part of the passenger equipment rulemaking required by Congress, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) has proposed that its existing fire safety guidelines be made mandatory. A major conclusion of an FRA-funded 1993 study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) was that the use of fire hazard assessment techniques, based on modeling and supported by measurement methods based on heat release rate (HRR), could provide a more credible and cost-effective means to predict real-world fire behavior of passenger train materials than the current approach. A comprehensive three-phase fire safety research program is being conducted by NIST under the sponsorship of the FRA Office of Research and Development to demonstrate the practicality and effectiveness of HRR-based test methods and hazard analysis techniques when applied to passenger train fire safety. The results of the research program will assist the FRA in determining appropriate fire safety requirements for the final passenger equipment rule. This document presents the Phase I results of the program which focused on the evaluation of passenger rail car interior materials using the Cone Calorimeter test data. A summary of U.S. transportation agency requirements for various types of vehicles is also provided. An update of U.S. and European passenger train fire performance requirements and related research is included. In Phase II, the Cone Calorimeter quantitative test data will be used as an input to a computer fire model as part of a fire hazard analysis. Phase III will involve real-scale testing of a full-scale rail car in order to verify the fire hazard analysis based on the computer model.
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