The findings provide a technology base for fireworthiness including the following: fire statistics on crash modes; the behavior of plastic gasolinetanks when subjected to fire and impact tests; finite element analysis offuel tanks subjected to crash conditions; assessments of automotive fuel components that relate to fire safety; underhood temperatures under driving conditions; flammability of underhood liners; ignition and flammability properties of plastics and underhood fluids; an analysis and synthesis of 22 vehicle burns; fire suppression needs and a laboratory design and test;and examination of fire safety aspects of future vehicle technologies such as 42-volt electrical systems and hydrogen fuelled vehicles. These research results in conjunction with the GM/DoT Fire Research Project have beenanalyzed and recommendations for fire safety improvements have been proposed. The recommendations include vehicle level fire tests to increases survivability time for crashed vehicles subjected to exterior fires, particularly those that originate under the hood. The full text of this paper may be found at: http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/esv/esv21/09-0211.pdf For the covering abstract see ITRD E145407.
Abstract