The Navy Technology Center for Safety and Survivability conducts basic and applied R&D programs aimed at the solution of current and future Navy problems in the fields of combustion, fire extinguishment, fire modeling and scaling, damage control, fuels and atmospheric hazards. The fuels work include characterization and development of synthetic mobility fuels. The Theoretical Chemistry Section's research aims to increase our fundamental understanding of the chemical and electronic properties of materials, surfaces, clusters, and molecules with potential importance to the Navy. The Section also provides the theoretical underpinning for planning, guiding, and interpreting the experimental studies in the Chemistry Division. The Combustion Modeling and Scaling Section is concerned with numerical simulation of fire processes including growth, spread and suppressions. It is also involved in combustion scaling as it relates to Navy platforms. The Combustion Dynamics Section is concerned with the chemistry, physics and dynamics of combustion and suppression processes primarily by an experimental approach. Shipboard Fire Scaling Section operates and maintains the ex-USS SHADWELL (LSD-15) the Navy's full-scale "Real Scale" Damage Control Facility dedicated to integrated Research, Development, Test and Evaluation studies on active and passive fire protection, flooding and chemical (simulants) defense. The Chemical Sensing/Chemometrics Section is concerned with detection and monitoring of hazardous chemicals, materials, and damage control events. Detection methods include trace chemical analysis, novel chemical sensors, and multisensory systems as well as a strong emphasis on sophisticated data analysis methods and intelligent data fusion. These techniques are being used to characterize jet fuels.

The Center also acts as the technology agent for Safety and Survivability for the Corporate Staff of the Chief of Naval Research, NAVSEA, NAVAIR and NAVFAC as well as OPNAV.

The Center has developed and maintains unique fire research facilities that include pressurable chambers up to 10,000 cu ft capacity. The Center also maintains test sites at NRL's Chesapeake Bay Detachment in Calvert County, Maryland, and, cooperatively with the U.S. Coast Guard, a test site at Mobile, AL, for large scale shipboard tests. The Secretary of the Navy has also assigned custody of the EX-SHADWELL (LSD-15) to the Center to be used as a unique full-scale fire and damage control test bed; this ship is located at Mobile, Alabama.