SFPE WEBINAR: IMAGING THROUGH FIRE USING NARROW SPECTRUM ILLUMINATION

https://www.sfpe.org/events/EventDetails.aspx?id=1348421&group=

Presented by: Matthew Hoehler, Research Structural Engineer, NIST; Christopher Smith, Senior Engineer, Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance

This presentation will present a simple and inexpensive method to enhance visibility through flames that allows new opportunities to perform optical metrology in fires. The method combines narrow-spectrum (blue) illumination and matched optical filters to reduce the influence of optical emissions from flames. Compared to white light, the required illumination to detect objects engulfed in flames with this method is reduced approximately four orders of magnitude. After we describe the method words, select applications of the method to a variety of fire experiments will be presented.