XL Global Asset Protection Services and Underwriters Laboratories recently unveiled research on water dynamics and fire sprinkler performance that could significantly improve the insurance industry’s fire-safety and fire-modeling capabilities. The research was presented at the Society for Fire Protection Engineers’ Annual Engineering Technology Conference.

“In order to really understand what happens in a fire, we need to improve on our knowledge of how water is discharged from sprinklers, how it travels through space and then how it interacts with the burning object, said Paul Hart, regional field leader for XL GAPS. "This data has given us a better understanding of the way that water travels to and interacts with fire under different conditions. This knowledge can help improve the reliability of fire modeling programs.”

Hart and Mahmood Tabaddor of Underwriters Laboratories present the research findings at the SFPE conference.

The research focused on examining the actual delivered density of water as it is emitted from sprinklers. This data will be used to improve the ability of modeling programs to simulate fire sprinklers’ discharge in characterizing what could happen in different fire scenarios. Fire modeling and fire testing are techniques used to predict fire dynamics, the effectiveness of sprinklers, and other fire safety measures. They are also used to study the way that fires interact with certain materials and within specific infrastructure.