Facilities
Our laboratory is located in Hesse Hall at the University of California, Berkeley (directions). Several dedicated spaces are available for combustion and fire research experiments.
60 Hesse Hall
This is the main laboratory space for both the Berkeley Fire Research Lab and the Combustion and Fire Processes Laboratory. Experiments are arranged under multiple hoods which exhaust from the research space.
Apparatus that are or can be arranged within this space include:
- Pressure chamber for microgravity combustion
- Wind tunnel with variable atmospheres
- Emissions generation apparatus
- Firebrand and smoldering fire wind tunnel
- Fire whirl apparatus
- Cone heater for heat flux calibration, ignition studies, flammabilities studies, and emissions studies
44 Hesse Hall
This space is shared with Prof. Fernandez-Pello and has two hoods for small-scale combustion and fire studies. The space is currently used for studies on heating from brazing using a robotic arm.
42B Hesse Hall
This space is under renovation and will be installed with a 3000 cfm hood for combustion studies. A smaller hood will also be ducted in to facilitate medium-scale experiments. A wind tunnel with a 30 x 30 cm outlet is currently instrumented in the space.
2114 Etcheverry Hall
This space is under renovation and will be used for small-scale research in the future.
Student Work Space
A large work area is available with seating to accommodate over 20 students and staff. The space is shared with other combustion researchers and has a conference room, kitchenette, etc.
Computational Equipment
Our laboratory has its own server (24 core Xeon processors, 10 TB RAID storage, 128GB RAM), primarily for CFD and fire risk modeling, and a 30 TB NAS backup to archive all laboratory data. We also have access to the UC Berkeley HPC Cluster, Savio.
Laboratory Equipment
A suite of laboratory equipment is available for the study of combustion and fire phenomena shared within laboratory spaces.
- IR Camera
- SLR and 4K video cameras
- High-speed video recording
- National Instruments DAQ cards
- High-speed hot-wire anemometers
- Water-cooled heat flux gauges for total and radiative heat flux measurements of different sizes, ranges, and response rates.
- Thermocouples, including fine-wire, high-speed, etc.
- Moveable wind tunnel with a 1200 cfm blower and 30 x 30 cm outlet
- Cone heater and temperature control unit
- Linear quartz heater apparatus
- Multiple precision X-Y stages
- PIV system for tracking flows
- Gas analysis equipment for CO, CO2, O2, NOx, SOx, and CxHy
- Soot measurement equipment including a TSI DustTrack and gravimetric sampling equipment
- Precision load cells
Laboratory Apparatus
Moveable wind tunnel used for fire studies with a 30 x 30 cm outlet. A highly laminar flow comes out but this has also been augmented with grid-generated turbulence for studies.
Another view of the wind tunnel
Side-view of the wind tunnel
Linear tube heater used for emissions studies
Cone heater used for heat flux calibration, flammability and ignition studies.
Thank you for the generous support from our sponsors:
