Stephen M. Olenick

Combustion Science Engineering, Inc · Fire Group

A statistical study was conducted to compare the performance of different residential smoke detector technologies when exposed to different fire types. In order to facilitate comparisons between different fire and smoke growth rates, a non-dimensional smoke detector activation relative time was employed. Data from four major experimental studies wa...

Flammable liquid fuel spills on flooring including carpets and other porous materials have long been a subject of interest to the fire investigation community. Early understanding in this community about the indicators of a liquid fuel fire, such as holes in flooring material or heavy burning in this area, have been shown to be incomplete. Research...

In 1992, a comprehensive survey of computer models for fire and smoke was conducted at the request of the Forum for International Cooperation on Fire Research. This study serves as an update to that work. One hundred sixty eight computer modeling programs for fire and smoke from several countries were identified and categorized. The developers were...

Smoke alarms are relied upon to notify building occupants of a fire, and the performance of these devices in the fire environment is critical for the safe evacuation of the building occupants. Development of smoke detection technology has focused primarily on the activation time of the smoke alarm and the amount of escape time they will provide. Th...

https://www.nfpa.org/News-and-Research/Data-research-and-tools/Detection-and-Signaling/Door-Messaging-Strategies-Implications-for-Detection-and-Notification

Classification of Modern Vehicle Hazards in Parking Structures & Systems - Ph II

The flammability of twelve (12) different alcoholic beverages was experimentally determined by means of flash point testing. The flash point of a liquid fuel is the temperature at which a pool of the substance produces enough flammable vapor to support a momentary flame that propagates over the surface of the pool when an external flame is introduc...

Traditional residential smoke alarms producing a high-frequency T-3 sound have been shown to exhibit sonic deposition of acoustically-agglomerated soot when they sound in the presence of smoke produced in a typical residential fire. The intense acoustic field generated by alarm sounders, which produce these traditional smoke alarm tones, causes col...

Vehicle fires in parking structures developing into large conflagrations are rare but can result in severe economic losses. It is important to understand the hazard posed by modern vehicle fires to determine whether current fire codes for parking garages are mandating adequate fire protection requirements. There has been an increase in the fire haz...

There are currently efforts to inform the public of the fire safety benefits of keeping bedroom doors closed when occupants are sleeping. A closed door can provide a substantial advantage to sleeping occupants of a bedroom in the event of a fire by hindering the spread of heat and toxic gases. The overall benefit in this arrangement is clear when o...

https://www.nfpa.org/News-and-Research/Data-research-and-tools/Building-and-Life-Safety/Modern-Vehicle-Hazards-in-Parking-Garages-Vehicle-Carriers

The original version of this article unfortunately contained an error in the Acknowledgement section.

Extended Abstract: https://www.nfpa.org/News-and-Research/Data-research-and-tools/Proceedings/SUPDET-2019

Smoke alarms have been shown to develop sonically-deposited regions of acoustically agglomerated soot particles when they sound in smoke-filled air. These sonic depositions can be examined forensically post-fire to determine if the smoke alarm sounded during the incident. However, it is not clear how these sonic depositions are affected by common f...

Audibility of fire alarm systems at mandated levels is critical to ensure a warning is heard by building occupants. To accomplish this, designers and installers utilize on-scene measurements as well as design calculations to ensure that the audibility of the fire alarm system is as designed as required. Despite this, there is a dearth of informatio...

Poster presentation

This study chronicles the development and integration of a smoke detector activation algorithm (known as the SDAA) that describes the response time of a smoke detector into a large eddy simulation (LES) fire model [Roby RJ, Olenick SM, Zhang W, Carpenter DJ, Klassen MS, Torero JL. Smoke detector activation algorithm version 1 technical reference gu...

This paper examines the standards for fire safety in transport systems and in particular the test method for the flammability of materials within passenger compartments of motor vehicles. The paper compares data from ignition tests conducted in the cone calorimeter and the FIST apparatus with tests conducted using the FMVSS 302 horizontal flame spr...

The occurrence of a liquid fuel burning on carpet has been involved in many incendiary and accidental fires. While the research on a liquid fuel fire on carpet is still limited, much work on porous media has been performed using sand or glass beads soaked with liquid fuel. In this study, a heat and mass transfer theory was first developed to analyz...

The burning rate of a slick of oil on a water bed is characterized by three distinct processes, ignition, flame spread and burning rate. Although all three processes are important, ignition and burning rate are critical. The former, because it defines the potential to burn and the latter because of the inherent possibility of boilover. Burning rate...

This is a study into the ability of the Fire Dynamics Simulator - Version 1.0 (FDS 1.0) to predict smoke detector activation. FDS is a field computer model that has shown promise in the modeling of fire phenomena. Two methods were used to create a first order approximation of the ability of FDS to predict smoke detector activation. First, the fluid...

Experiments have been performed in microgravity and normal gravity to determine the effects of low-velocity airflows on the piloted ignition delay of solid fuels. Natural convection prevents material testing at the low oxidizer velocities encountered in space facilities (similar to0.1 m/s); thus, it is necessary to conduct these tests in reduced gr...

Thesis research directed by Dept. of Fire Protection Engineering. Thesis (M.S.)--University of Maryland, College Park, 1999. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 96-103).