CESARE offers research and testing opportunities for applications in fire safety engineering.

Fire test facilities include:

• Fire test furnaces
• Cone calorimeter
• 3MW calorimeter and ISO room
• Large fire test facilities
• Four storey building scale model

Fire test furnaces

The fire test furnaces are used to study the thermal and structural behaviour of elements of construction. These experimental findings are useful for product improvement or to provide thermal data to allow the calculation of performance. These facilities allow testing of loaded floors, loaded walls and other such setups under either hydrocarbon or standard fire test heating regimes.

Cone calorimeter

The cone calorimeter provides a method of testing the reaction of materials to heat exposure. In this test, small samples of materials (100 mm x 100 mm) are exposed to various levels of radiation and the resulting products of combustion are drawn into a hood and analysed allowing various calculations, such as the mass loss and heat release rates, to be determined.

3MW calorimeter and International Standard Organisation (ISO) room

The 3MW calorimeter is similar to the cone calorimeter but at a much larger scale. It allows the burning characteristics (heat release rate versus time) to be established for a variety of items, such as furniture, by burning them directly under the hood or within an ISO room. Measuring 3.6 m x 2.4 m x 2.4 m high, an ISO room is a standard for tests that allow the evaluation of lining materials giving a good indication of how they might behave in buildings.

Large fire test facilities

The CESARE Large Scale Experimental Building-Fire Facility is located in Fiskville at the CFA training facility, 10kms south of Ballan.  In its earliest form it consisted of a multi-level building, incorporating a stair shaft which can be pressurised, in which experimental research on fires in bedrooms and other investigations was undertaken.

This building has now incorporated within a very large enclosure that permits very large fire experiments to be conducted undisturbed by external weather conditions. The building houses a 15 MW oxygen calorimeter for measurement of combustion products during large experimental fires.

In the Large Fire Test Facility many tests required by petrochemical companies and organisations like Ports and Harbours who store large amounts of oil and flammable liquids can be undertaken. A foam testing facility has also been established at the site to test the effectiveness of fire extinguishing foams.

Four storey building scale model

Various scenarios can be simulated utilising the detailed four storey building model allowing researchers to study fire and smoke movement that might occur in one or over several levels, including lift and stairwell involvement. By varying the location of fuel and ventilation, the effects of different ventilation arrangements can be measured using more than 160 thermocouples and other instruments.