Status of the fire protection research (FPR) program

The objective of the Fire Protection Research (FPR) Program at Sandia is to confirm the capability of safety features in use or planned for use in nuclear power plants. This objective is to be achieved by full scale testing and experimental and analytical evaluation of fire phenomenology. The specific major tasks of the research during this part year were: (1) Test fire resistant coatings to establish their effectiveness as a fire retardant on electrical cable trays; (2) Test fire shields between horizontal cable trays to establish their effectiveness in preventing fire propagation between such trays; (3) Begin tests of vertical cable tray configurations to establish the effectiveness of barriers and water suppression to prevent fire propagation between the trays; and (4) Design and construction of a fire test facility for use in determining the capability of gas and water suppression systems to extinguish deep-seated cable fires