Fire Testing Parliamentary Doors
During renovations to Canada's Parliament Buildings in the 1980s, NRC scientists fire tested the building's stairway exit doors. The fire test room has a propane-fired burner that mimics the behaviour of a real fire. The oak double doors, shown here mounted on the test room, failed; fire broke through in under 15-minutes, rather than the required two-hours. To protect the doors, NRC scientists designed a water curtain system using sidewall sprinklers. With this system, even after two hours of fire testing the varnish on the doors didn't even blister. |
|
