Fire testing
Our fire testing laboratory offers a full range of fire resistance and reaction to fire tests for the building, construction and marine industries. Reaction to fire tests quantify the response of a product, material or system to a fire.
- A 2,310 m² building footprint, about the size of five netball courts, and 22.5 m high roof, higher than five double decker buses. This will allow us to test and simulate the impact of fire on multi-storey structures and run multiple tests at the same time.
- A large-scale fire calorimetry and open burn hood (10 MW) to measure and analyse heat release and carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide production rates to evaluate the fire safety of entire buildings.
- Two full-scale cube furnaces and one pilot furnace, which are fixed fire test furnaces that can test both flat and vertical materials. This will allow multiple tests to happen in quick succession, meaning faster testing processing on a bigger scale.
- New façade testing to measure how fire spreads up the outside of multi-storey buildings.
- Individual client spaces to ensure confidentiality for our clients as well as space to set up products and systems for testing.
- Wet scrubber to process and clean exhaust emissions from fire testing, transforming this into clean steam. This reduces the environmental impact of this large-scale fire testing.
- State-of-the-art data acquisition system that can monitor the real-time response of building systems to fire testing as specified under the New Zealand Building Code.
- A climate control room to ensure close-to-realistic testing conditions for materials and systems.
Fire assessments
Fire assessments offer a cost-effective alternative to testing. They are engineering-based evaluations in place of testing where there is a minor variation from the tested prototype. Fire assessments consider the fire performance of a material, product or system that would be expected if it were to be subjected to testing.
More information about fire testing
Get in touch with the team to find out more about the tests we offer at firetesting@branz.co.nz or give us a call on +64 4 237 1170 to discuss your testing requirements.