Alternative fuel vehicles, including electric vehicles (EV), are designed with larger quantities of combustible materials that present new and unique hazards, particularly in parking garages and vehicle carriers. To provide informed guidance for the fire safety design of parking garages or other facilities with large numbers of vehicles, the Fire Protection Research Foundation has undertaken the third part of a three-phase project addressing sprinkler protection guidance for modern vehicle hazards in parking structures and systems.
Characterizing EV Hazards in Parking Structures to Inform Fire Safety Design Guidance: Full-Scale Testing will involve characterizing the overall hazard of modern vehicles and determining the overall impact of sprinkler protection on hazard mitigation through full-scale fire and sprinkler testing. This experimental program aims to determine the optimal sprinkler design density to control vehicle fires and prevent spread to neighboring vehicles.
These experiments will provide crucial data on heat fluxes and fire spread in parking structures, informing fire protection practices and sprinkler design standards, by providing data on what hazard classification in NFPA 13, Standard for the Installation of Sprinkler Systems is appropriate for vehicles in a parking garage. They will also provide a better understanding of the full-scale fire behavior of modern vehicles in different variables and fire scenarios.
Dan Hounsell is senior editor for the facilities market. He has more than 30 years of experience writing about facilities maintenance, engineering and management.
