The nuclear fire threat to urban areas. Final report Aug 1973--Apr 1975

Technical Report · Tue Apr 01 04:00:00 EDT 1975

OSTI ID:7250088

Wiersma, S J; Martin, S B

The nuclear fire threat to urban areas was evaluated in a five-year structural fire dynamics program. The program (1) experimentally determined the dynamic characteristics of full-scale building fires, and (2) used the findings of the structural fire behavior experiments along with existing knowledge of structural blast behavior to predict the combined blast-fire response of an urban area to a nuclear attack. In the experimental program, wood-frame buildings were burned to determine the dynamic behavior of one type of structure. Parameters which were varied included wind velocity, fuel contents in the rooms, degree of simulated blast damage to the building, number of buildings burning at one time, initial fire size, and ceiling material in the rooms. Measurements included burning rates, fire spread rates, toxic gas concentrations, air temperatures, and induced inflow winds. To predict the combined blast-fire response of an urban area to a nuclear attack, two land-use areas, residential and built-up commercial, and two ranges of overpressure, 2 to 5 psi and 5 to 15 psi, were considered. The predictions are summarized in a table. A striking result of the study is the uniform coverage of debris, leaving very few debris-free areas except in built-up commercial land-use area at the Z-5 psi overpressure range. (GRA)

• Research Organization: Stanford Research Inst., Menlo Park, Calif. (USA)
• OSTI ID: 7250088
• Report Number(s): AD-A-018342
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEFENSE
990500* -- Civilian Defense-- (-1987)
BLAST EFFECTS
BUILDINGS
CIVIL DEFENSE
EXPLOSIONS
FIRE HAZARDS
FIRES
HAZARDS
NATIONAL DEFENSE
NUCLEAR EXPLOSIONS
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
URBAN AREAS
WEAPONS