Material fire properties and predictions for thermoplastics

Ignition and burning rate data are developed for nylon 6/6, polyethylene, polypropylene and black polycast PMMA in a cone calorimeter heating assembly. The objective is to examine a testing protocol that leads to the prediction of ignition and burning rate for thermoplastics from cone calorimeter data. The procedure consists of determining material properties, i.e. thermal inertia, specific heat, thermal conductivity, ignition temperature, heat of gasification and flame heat flux from cone data, and utilizing these properties in a model to predict the time to ignition and transient burning rate. The procedure is based on the incident flame heat flux being constant in the cone calorimeter which occurs for flames above the top of the cone heater. A constant net flame heat flux of approximately 20 kW/m² for nylon 6/6, 19 kW/m² for polyethylene, 11 kW/mP² for polypropylene and 28 kW/m² for black PMMA is obtained for irradiation levels ranging from 0 to 90 kW/m². The burning rate model is shown to yield good accuracy in comparison to measured transient burning in the cone assembly.     

Graybody radiation from conical flames

The spatial dependence of graybody radiation from a cone, the shape representative of small flames, has been computed. A comparison of the radiative heat flux from this model and experimental measurements of the total heat flux from a flame indicate that up to 74 percent of the total emitted intensity is radiative.     

Effect of oxygen concentration on the combustion of horizontally-oriented slabs of PMMA

The aim of this study is to collect data on the combustion of horizontally-oriented poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) samples in reduced oxygen atmospheres for CFD model validation. Experimental results relating the oxygen concentration to the burning behavior of 3-cm-thick clear PMMA slabs are discussed. Experiments are conducted in the controlled atmosphere calorimeter of IRSN called CADUCEE. Pyrolysis and combustion of 0.2×0.2 m² horizontally-oriented PMMA samples are studied varying the oxygen molar fraction from 0.210 to 0.180, extinction occurring at about 0.175. The measured quantities are the regression rate of the slab, mass loss rate, temperatures and total and radiative heat fluxes at the center of the slab. All experiments are carried out twice, showing a good repeatability. It is found that the slab regression rate, mass loss rate and heat fluxes at the slab center decrease significantly with the oxygen concentration, while the gas temperature is much less sensitive. Most notable is that the radiative and convective contributions to the total heat flux remain almost constant, respectively 0.65 and 0.35. It is also found that both heat fluxes and mass loss rate exhibit linear oxygen-concentration-dependent behavior. From an energy balance and current average values of the total heat flux and regression rate at the center of the slab, the present study obtains a heat of gasification value of 2.25 MJ kg⁻¹, in agreement with literature data.     

Extinction of surface stabilized gaseous diffusion flames: Part I Simplified numerical model and implications for solid fuels in fires

In this work a previously proposed empirical and analytical criterion for extinction is numerically extended and validated for varying fuel dilution, oxidant dilution, strain rate, and surface temperature. The output of this work is presented in two parts: the current Part I uses simple kinetics and constant thermal transfer properties and Part II uses detailed kinetics, varying thermal transfer properties, flame radiation feedback and flame suppression agents in order to demonstrate that conclusions from the simplified model are still valid. In addition this work goes beyond the concept of critical flame temperature or mass flux for extinction by including the influence of slow chemical kinetics through the Damkohler number which becomes even more important for commonly used fire retarded materials.Extinction of flames on solid fuels is modeled by decoupling the pyrolysis chemistry from the gas-phase combustion chemistry using the flame energy feedback versus pyrolysis rate curves and an energy balance at the surface. This approach has the advantage of identifying and deducing key materials properties for solid and gaseous phase from experiments. Simulations are performed in a planar stagnation-point flow diffusion flame configuration using one-step Arrhenius chemical kinetics and a simplified transport model with Lewis number equal to unity. Only quasi-steady conditions are considered for the gaseous phase even if the pyrolysis rate of the solid is transient because the response time for the solid phenomena is, in general, much larger than the response (diffusion) time for the gaseous phenomena.It is found that at high pyrolysis rates and low straining rates (infinitely fast kinetics regime) there is no leakage of oxygen to the surface of solid fuel. However, as the solid fuel extinction is approached, oxygen leakage occurs because the effective air to fuel mass stoichiometric ratio becomes less than one owing to fuel dilution near the surface. At high straining rates, solid combustion cannot be sustained at any pyrolysis rate. In the infinitely fast kinetics regime, an appropriate scaling has been developed which collapses the convective heat flux curves onto a single one. In general, the critical pyrolysis fuel mass flux exhibits a universal behavior for variation of various model parameters when plotted versus a modified Damköhler number, and becomes constant when the latter is sufficiently high. Comparison with experiments is discussed, and the implications of the criterion for characterizing ignition flammability properties of solid fuels are also discussed.     

CFD Simulations of Fire Propagation in Horizontal Cable Trays Using a Pyrolysis Model with Stochastically Determined Geometry

In this paper, a pyrolysis model for a PVC cable is constructed using results from thermogravimetric analysis, microscale combustion calorimeter and cone calorimeter experiments. The pyrolysis model is used to simulate fire propagation in horizontal cable trays. The simulated arrangement corresponds to a cable tray fire experiment from OECD PRISME 2 project. As laying the cables loosely along the horizontal trays is a random process, a novel stochastic method is developed for making the simplified cable tray geometries for the computational fluid dynamics model. In addition, as the simplified cable tray geometry has significantly smaller surface area than a real tray full of cables, the surface area was parametrically adjusted. In contrast to most of the earlier published numerical approaches for simulating cable tray fires, the presented approach does not use empirical correlations for predicting fire propagation and does not require any results from full-scale experiments for calibrating the model. The simulation results are compared to experimental results in terms of heat release rate, mass loss, tray ignition times and lateral flame spread rates. The maximum heat release rate was overpredicted by 8% on average.

     

设备尺度对可燃材料失重速率的影响

文章分别利用锥型量热计和火灾早期特性实验台对柞木的失重速度进行了实验测量。研究结果表明：尺度效应的作用非常明显。相同辐射能量条件下，相比于火灾早期特性试验台实验，锥型量热计实验中试样容易着火，而且过程中火焰稳定，火陷持续时间较长。     

辐射热作用下金属钠燃烧现象试验研究

在辐射热通量为25~60kW/m²条件下对利用锥形量热仪对金属钠的燃烧现象进行了研究,测量了燃烧尾气中的氧气含量与剩余物料的质量。结果表明:随着环境热通量增加,金属钠燃烧现象存在较大差异性,残留物数量逐渐减少至完全参与燃烧。当辐射热通量小于30kW/m²时,金属钠未出现明火燃烧;在外界辐射热通量为50~60kW/m²时,金属钠发生较不稳定、不充分的明火燃烧;当辐射热通量大于60kW/m²时,金属钠发生较为稳定且全面的明火燃烧。     

Numerical predictions for a simulated methane fire

A buoyant, turbulent methane flame with a base diameter of 0.25mm and a heat release rate of 28 kW was numerically modeled. Soot formation was included in the model by a phenomenological soot formation scheme. Gas radiation was treated by a weighted-sum gray-gas model. A non-isothermal, non-homogeneous field approach was utilized and the thermal radiation was included by incorporating a four flux radiation model into a finite-difference scheme.

The methane fire did not show appreciable soot concentrations to the extent that the radiation was significantly affected. The radiation present was predominantly due to gaseous species. The centerline flame properties such as the axial velocity, mean temperature, and entrainment behaviors are generally well reproduced by the theory. However, the radial expansion of the flame is underestimated near the flame base because of the neglect of the elliptic behavior in the present approach.

An analysis of the thermal radiation behavior revealed a non-uniform heat feedback flux distribution. Unlike in sooting flames, where the flux maximizes usually midway between the centerline and flame edge, we observe the maximum flux at the pool center in the methane fire. In sooting flames, this behavior arises because of radiative energy blockage by the cold fuel vapor and soot in the core. A reduced radiation blockage in the methane flame is a distinguishing feature of the methane fire compared with sooting pool fires.     

Experimental investigation of the impact of oxygen flux on the burning dynamics of forest fuel beds

To characterize the burning dynamics of porous wildland fuels it is fundamental to understand the heat and mass transfer mechanisms. These are significantly different compared to solid fuels and less well documented. Radiation feedback from flames and convective heat transfer from forced airflow have been found to influence the pyrolysis and combustion processes. Smoldering combustion and resulting heat feedback is also shown to have significant impact. The link between burning dynamics and the oxygen availability is also explored. Combustion experiments are carried out using the FM Global Fire Propagation Apparatus in order to investigate changes in the burning behavior of porous fuel beds as a function of the oxygen availability. The oxygen flux into the combustion zone was varied by three mechanisms, (1) varying natural entrainment, (2) changing forced flow magnitude and (3) oxygen concentration. Results investigated from the combustion tests were the duration of flaming (from which the average burning rate was deduced), CO and CO₂ generation rates, combustion efficiency and heat release rate. For both test series, the duration of flaming decreased and peak heat release rate increased with increasing oxygen flux. For tests with varying flow magnitude the combustion efficiency stayed constant with a CO/CO₂ ratio below 1.5%. For tests with varying flow oxygen concentration the ratio was much higher, between 12% and 26%, indicating high levels of incomplete combustion. At a given oxygen flux, changes in heat flux feedback from the flames, convection cooling, and combustion efficiency were found to be the reason for differences on the order of 30–50% in burning rate and thus heat release rate. The intensity of smoldering increased with increasing oxygen flux equally for both tests series. The study explored herein provides insight into importance of several heat and mass transfer mechanisms that govern the burning dynamics of porous wildland fuel beds. Furthermore, it also highlights the necessity of understanding incomplete combustion (flaming) in the wildfire context.     

氢氧化镁和十溴二苯醚对海水阻燃性能的影响

研究了海水中添加Mg(OH)2和十溴二苯醚后棉布和地毯的热解及燃烧行为,对比了添加量对棉布和地毯的点燃时间、热解速度、火焰持续时间等参数的影响,并利用锥形量热仪测定了添加阻燃剂前后材料的点燃时间、热释放速率、质量损失速率和CO释放速率.结果表明,添加Mg(OH)2和十溴加锑后,浸海水棉布和地毯的热分解速度明显降低,点燃时间延长,最大热释放速率和质量损失速率都显著降低.Mg(OH)2或十溴加锑的最佳添加量分别为10%和5%.     

Applied Heat Flux Distribution and Time Response Effects on Cone Calorimeter Characterization of a Commercial Flexible Polyurethane Foam

The burning behavior of a commercial flexible polyurethane foam has been studied in a cone calorimeter using standard ASTM procedures. It is shown that burning takes place in two distinct stages, with the first primarily due to the release of species derived from the isocyanate used in the manufacture of the foam and the second due to species derived from the polyether component. Experiments showed that approximately 40% of the original foam mass is lost during the first burning stage. Due to the low density and high flammability of the foam, burning takes place at a high rate, and experimental times are relatively short. As a result, the heat release rates measured by the cone calorimeter are distorted by the non-uniform heat flux distribution of the cone heater over the sample volume and the instrument’s finite time response. Two heat release models were developed and applied to approximately correct for the effects of finite time response and non-uniform heat flux distribution. Values reported include mass loss rate, heat release rate, heat of combustion, and heat of gasification for each of the burning stages. The measurement results are compared with earlier published findings for similar foams. The results are found to fall into two distinct classes with different heat release rate behaviors. Possible reasons for the differences are discussed.     

CFD and experimental studies of room fire growth on wall lining materials

CFD simulation and experimental tests have been carried out to study the room corner fire growth on combustible wall-lining materials. In the CFD simulation, the turbulent mass and heat transfer, and combustion were considered. The discrete transfer (DT) method was employed to calculate the radiation with an absorptivity and emissivity model employed to predict the radiation property of combustion products including soot, CO₂ and H₂O, which are usually the primary radiating species in the combustion of hydrocarbon fuels. The temperature of the solid boundary was determined by numerical solution of the heat conduction equation. A simple and practical pyrolysis model was developed to describe the response of the solid fuel. This pyrolysis model was first tested against the Cone Calorimeter data for both charring and non-charring materials under different irradiance levels and then coupled to CFD calculations. Both full and one-third scale room corner fire growths on particle board were modelled with CFD. The calculation was tested with various numbers of rays and grid sizes, showing that the present choice gives practically grid- and ray number-independent predictions. The heat release rate, wall surface temperature, char depth, gas temperature and radiation flux are compared with experimental measurements. The results are reasonable and the comparison between prediction and experiment is fairly good and promising.     

Burning rate and flame heat flux for PMMA in a cone calorimeter

Ignition and burning rate data are developed for thick (25 mm) black Polycast PMMA in a cone calorimeter heating assembly. The objective is to establish a testing protocol that will lead to the prediction of ignition and burning rate from cone data. This is done for a thermoplastic like PMMA. The incident flame heat flux, for irradiation levels of 0–75 kW/m², is found to be approximately 37 kW/m² for black PMMA. Its constancy is shown due to the geometry of the cone flame. Also, this flame is shown to be nearly transparent for cone irradiance (>90%). The heat of gasification of the black PMMA used is found to be approximately 2.8 kJ/g; higher than values reported for other PMMA samples. This is believed to be due to differences in molecular structure or pigmentation of the PMMA tested. A burning rate model is demonstrated to yield good accuracy in comparison to measured transient values. An exact solution is found for constant heat flux conditions.     

Influence of sidewalls on width effects of upward flame spread

A previous study has reported width effects for turbulent diffusion upward flame spread on thermally thick materials with sidewalls. However, sidewalls are not realistic. The present study has revisited this topic by performing experiments without sidewalls using 9 mm thick and 1000 mm tall PMMA slabs with widths of 100, 200, 300, 500 and 700 mm and by providing a hypothesis of the sidewall effects. Experimental data have revealed that the width effects still exist when sidewalls are absent. Flame heights and spread rates were higher for wider flames, although heat feedback to the fuel did not vary much with flame width. Compared to flames without sidewalls, the existence of sidewalls lengthened flame heights and generally reduced heat feedback along the central lines of the flames, resulting in higher flame spread rates for narrower flames and lower flame spread rates for wider flames. In addition, the absence of sidewalls enhanced the delivery of pyrolyzate towards the central line of the flames throughout the whole flame width.     

Piloted ignition times,critical heat fluxes and mass loss rates at reduced oxygen atmospheres

Ignition, pyrolysis and burning of materials in reduced oxygen atmospheres occur when recirculating combustion gases are mixed with the air flowing into an enclosure. Still the incoming air can be sufficient for the complete combustion of the pyrolysis gases. Thus, for the prediction of fires in enclosures it is essential to understand the ignition and burning of materials in a reduced oxygen atmosphere even when plenty of oxidizer is available for complete combustion. Previous work employing gaseous fuels has shown that under these conditions, but before extinction, burning of gaseous fuels issuing from a nozzle is complete but radiation from the flames decreases owing to the reduction of their temperature. Complementary to that work, piloted ignition of solids is investigated here at reduced oxygen concentrations by measuring the ignition times and mass loss rates of the solid at ignition.These results were obtained in a cone calorimeter modified to supply air at reduced oxygen concentrations. Two types of plywood, normal and fire retardant 4 mm thick were examined at three imposed heat fluxes 25, 35 and 50 kW/m² and at oxygen concentrations of 21%, 18% and 15% by volume. Because heating at these heat fluxes and material thickness corresponds to intermediate thermal conditions (i.e. neither thin nor thick), novel analytical solutions are developed to analyze the data and extract the thermal and ignition properties of the material. The same novel solutions can be applied to modeling concurrent or countercurrent flame spread. Moreover, a theory for piloted ignition explains why the ignition times and mass pyrolysis rates are weakly dependent on reduced oxygen concentrations.     

Metrological Tool for the Characterization of Flame Fronts Based on the Coupling of a Heat Flux Approach with Image Processing Data

The aim of this paper is to present some improvements in the metrology of forest fire flames by coupling image processing and radiative heat flux measurement. A new metrological tool using a visual video camera and a specific multiple thermal sensors is proposed. By means of an appropriate segmentation algorithm and the Direct Linear Transformation, the image processing methodology gives the forward or the backward fire front positions as input data to a radiative heat flux approach. Using a simplified flame model, this technique provides fire front positions versus time, and average values for the flame length, flame depth, flame tilt angle, apparent flame temperature and flame emissivity. The rates of spread, obtained by a linear regression of the determined fire front positions, as well as the thermal and radiative properties of the flame, are compared favorably to those given in the literature.     

Flame heat transfer in storage geometries

This paper presents measurements of the heat flux distribution to the surface of four square towers exposed to buoyant turbulent flames.The steel towers represent an idealisation of a rack storage configuration at reduced scale. Each tower was 1.8 m high and 0.3 m×0.3 m wide. The fuel was supplied from a circular gas burner at the floor. Three different gaseous fuels were used: carbon monoxide (CO), propane (C₃H₈), and propylene (C₃H₆). These fuels cover a wide range of flame sootiness resulting in distinctly different flame heat fluxes. At the same overall heat release rates the peak heat fluxes from C₃H₈ flames were twice those from CO flames, whereas the peak heat fluxes from C₃H₈ flames were 2.8 times those from CO flames. Heat fluxes were measured by thermocouples spot-welded to the back of the steel sheets. They were measured at 52 different locations. This measurement method turns out to be simple, accurate and robust in addition to being inexpensive. Formulas are provided for the flame heat flux distribution in terms of the overall fire heat release rate, fuel sootiness and separation distance between the towers. The formulas are suitable for direct use by engineering models of fire growth in storage geometries. The paper also provides additional data needed for the development of more general CFD models capable of predicting fire growth of other geometries.     

Fire behaviors of polymers under autoignition conditions in a cone calorimeter

Besides piloted ignition, autoignition is also an important aspect to real fire development as combustible materials may be ignited without independent flame. Fire behaviors of non-charring and charring polymers were then investigated in a cone calorimeter under autoignition conditions. Fire risk of non-charring polymers are higher than those of charring polymers because of high heat release, and the increase of heat release rate is much obvious with a higher heat flux or thickness. Charring polymers seem to have a higher CO yield, while non-charring polymers have a higher CO₂ yield. Ignition methods have influences to combustion efficiency of non-charring polymers as effective heat of combustion under autoignition are observed lower than those reference data under piloted ignition conditions. Its influences to charring polymers are not obvious. Both CO and CO₂ yields under flaming combustion are higher than those under non-flaming combustion, but mass percent of carbon seem to has limited effect. Experimental data in this study can provide a guidance to fire risk evaluation of non-charring and charring polymers.     

Heat feedback to the fuel surface of a pool fire in an enclosure

As a part of an effort to determine the energy balance at the pool fire surface in compartments, a series of fire experiments were conducted to study heat flux of the flame in a vitiated environment formed with air and combustion products gases. This paper presents experimental results of the burning behaviour of a heptane pool fire in a reduced scale compartment equipped with a mechanical ventilation network. Measurements of heat fluxes, fuel mass loss rate, oxygen concentration and temperature are performed for heptane fires of 0.26 and 0.3 m diameter pans at different ventilation flow rates. An original method to separate effects of the radiant heat flux of the flame and of the external heat feedback to the fuel surface is developed. This was achieved by using an additional heat flux measurement located under the pool fire. A correlation was also developed to determine the temperature rise on the plume centerline in the compartment as a function of the heat release rate. The results indicate a decrease in the fuel mass loss rate, flame temperature and heat fluxes to the fuel surface as the oxygen concentration measured near the fuel decreases by varying the air refresh rate of the compartment. The flame radiation fraction shows a similar behaviour, whereas the convective fraction of the flame heat flux increases when oxygen concentration decreases. Based on these experimental findings, it was discussed that any classification of the burning regime of a pool fire should consider both the effects of pan diameter and the burning response to vitiated air.     

典型变压器油燃烧特性及烟气危害性研究

利用锥形量热仪及傅里叶变换红外光谱仪,测试了典型变压器油在3种不同外加热辐射通量下的燃烧特性和烟气危害性。重点对比了凝固点不同的KI25X和KI50X变压器油的燃烧过程和火灾危险性。结果表明,外加热辐射通量和变压器油的类型均会对燃烧特性和火灾危险性产生影响。随着外加热辐射通量的增加,两种变压器油的点燃时间均缩短,HRR、生烟率及CO的浓度峰值随之增加。当外加热辐射通量提高至35 kW/m²时,KI50X变压器油火灾的蔓延速度更快,释放出的毒性气体浓度更大,此时其火灾热危险性和烟气危害性相较更大。