Special testing

Special testing (real scale fire test, ad hoc tests, large calorimeter hood test [10MW]) (including engineering related test)

In some cases, standard tests are not appropriate for the assessment of fire protection products or system. As a consequence, some special tests are necessary to assess the fire behavior or the effectiveness of fire protection system. Efectis has at its disposal a range of experimental facilities to evaluate fire spread, combustion properties, and fire behavior of structural elements in real fire conditions.

Combustion testing under a calorimeter hood

Combustion tests under the calorimeter hood enables an optimization of the safety distances in the context of hazard studies of CIEP, and experimental data for fire safety engineering assessments to be obtained. This test enables the data necessary to characterize the consequences of a fire scenario to be established:
• Heat release rate
• Weight loss
• Combustion toxic gas
• Flame emissivity (heat radiation)
• Nature of the combustion and fire spread
• etc.

Calorimeter hood (8m x 8m x 4m) equipped with a ground scale and a fixed fire extinguishing system

Full-scale tests on existing or mock-up structures (public buildings, tunnels, multilevel parking structures, warehouses, etc.)

Efectis has carried out numerous smoke and fire spread full-scale tests on the inside of existing or mock-up structures, in order to compare experimental results with modelling simulations. These tests usually necessitate a large number of sensors (over 300) to assess the main parameters characterizing:
• The development of the fire
• The flammability and critical heat flux of materials
• Fumigation and propagation of the smoke
• The fire behavior of the building elements and structures

 

Smoke spread test in large space

 

Fire behavior of steel parking structures under natural fire

 

Flammability and critical heat flux of combustible materials under natural fire

 

Heat radiation and mode of collapse testing of warehouse – Flumilog

 

Fire behavior in case of natural fire

Efectis has all the necessary equipment for a complete characterization of the fire behavior, with a wide range of metrology equipment (thermocouples, manometers, flow meters, load sensors, energy analyzers, heat cameras, etc.), but also dedicated tools such as the mobile furnace, cabinets for the control of the electrical functionality of cables, or video endoscopes able to visualize and record inside the furnace, or the place of the fire.

Fire behavior of nuclear waste protective packaging – CIGEO Project

 

 

 

 

Natural fire resistance furnaces

 

Facade testing facility

 

Extinguishing tests of mobile and fixed systems

Efectis can carry out extinguishing tests of fixed and mobile systems (water mist, compressed air foam, sprinkler, and foam systems) in large confined spaces (10m high, tunnel infrastructures, or under calorimetric hood).