M. Suzanne, S. Ukleja, M. Delichatsios, Jianping Zhang, B. Karlsson
{"title":"Fundamental flame spread and toxicity evaluation of fire retarded polymers","authors":"M. Suzanne, S. Ukleja, M. Delichatsios, Jianping Zhang, B. Karlsson","doi":"10.3801/IAFSS.FSS.11-846","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3801/IAFSS.FSS.11-846","url":null,"abstract":"A simple method is developed for characterizing the fire performance and toxicity of polymers using basically three but up to five parameters if necessary. The first parameter is related to fire spread and growth (corresponding to UL-94 and the FIGRA of SBI), the second parameter is the smoke yield (corresponding to the SMOGRA of SBI), the third parameter is the inefficiency of combustion (related to unburned hydrocarbon compounds and their toxicity as verified by tube furnace measurements), the fourth parameter is the mass of residue remaining and the fifth parameter is a heat release parameter for thermally thin conditions (the maximum mass loss rate in TGA multiplied by the effective heat of combustion deduced from the Cone Calorimeter tests). The developed methodology was used to compare brominated and halogen free fire retardants in formulations of PBT, PA66, PPE/HIPS and PC/ABS. It is confirmed that the studied environmentally friendly alternatives to brominated fire retardants offer comparable fire performance with lower toxicity.","PeriodicalId":12145,"journal":{"name":"Fire Safety Science","volume":"15 1","pages":"846-859"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72536174","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Role of montmorillonite for enhancing fire retardancy of intumescent PLA","authors":"G. Fontaine, A. Gallos, S. Bourbigot","doi":"10.3801/iafss.fss.11-808","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3801/iafss.fss.11-808","url":null,"abstract":"This work deals with the effect of an organomodified montmorillonite (OMMT, cloisite C30B) in intumescent PLA, which makes it nonflammable. The use of OMMT dramatically improves the fire properties of intumescent PLA in terms of limiting oxygen index (LOI) and heat release rate (HRR), which is almost zero. The part played by OMMT in the improvement of the FR performance was studied using a Microscale Combustion Calorimeter (MCC), solid-state NMR ( 13 C, 31 P and 27 Al) and specific set-up for temperature and swelling measurements in the char during fire test. It is shown that the clay increases the efficiency of the protective char by strongly limiting heat and mass transfer.","PeriodicalId":12145,"journal":{"name":"Fire Safety Science","volume":"87 1","pages":"808-820"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74273566","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
O. Aljumaiah, G. Andrews, A. Jimenez, N. R. Duhoon, H. Phylaktou
{"title":"Fuel Volatility Effects on Pool Fires in Compartments with Low Ventilation","authors":"O. Aljumaiah, G. Andrews, A. Jimenez, N. R. Duhoon, H. Phylaktou","doi":"10.3801/iafss.fss.11-331","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3801/iafss.fss.11-331","url":null,"abstract":"Pool fires in low ventilation compartments give rise to ghosting flames and their toxic and particulate emissions were investigated for 400mm square pool fires in a 1.6 m 3 compartment with ventilation of 0.035 kg/m 2 s, air mass flow rate per pool surface area. These conditions produced global compartment equivalence ratios that were rich and this did occur for kerosene and heptane , but diesel and toluene only achieved near stoichiometric conditions. The low ventilation produced low ceiling temperatures of between 380 and 480 o C with the highest temperature for diesel and the lowest for heptane. Particulate mass emissions were highest for kerosene at 6.5 g/kgf and lowest for heptane at 0.9 g/kgf. Soot emissions were lowest for heptane at 0.2 g/kgf and highest for kerosene at 5 g/kgf. These are relatively low soot emissions, due to the low fire temperatures for near stoichiometric combustion. These low temperatures were mainly due to low combustion efficiencies with high CO and HC yields.","PeriodicalId":12145,"journal":{"name":"Fire Safety Science","volume":"9 1","pages":"331-345"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76594892","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
P. Hugues, Varrall Kevin, Audouin Laurent, V. Olivier
{"title":"Smoke induced flow in two rooms mechanically ventilated and linked with a horizontal vent type opening","authors":"P. Hugues, Varrall Kevin, Audouin Laurent, V. Olivier","doi":"10.3801/iafss.fss.11-486","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3801/iafss.fss.11-486","url":null,"abstract":"This work deals with smoke movements between two mechanically ventilated compartments interconnected by a vent. Based on large scale fire tests, it discusses the effect of vent flow on smoke stratification. The tests concern a 97kW propane fire in a 120m 3 enclosure connected to an adjacent 170m 3 enclosure, both mechanically ventilated. The renewal rate is the varying parameter (from 2.3h -1 to 8h -1 ) typical to operating conditions in nuclear installations. The present contribution investigates the effect of the vent flow on the smoke distribution in both rooms. The temperature and species concentration distributions are analyzed. The effect of ventilation flow rate on the smoke filling and the smoke distribution in both rooms is presented. From mass balance equations, an indirect method is proposed to compute the flow rates at vent (net, upward and downward) only from gas temperatures and species concentrations in both rooms without considering direct measurements at the vent. This indirect method is compared to a direct method (computation of flow rates from spatial integration of temperature and velocity field at the vent cross section). The analysis discusses the application of this indirect method for large scale fire test experiments","PeriodicalId":12145,"journal":{"name":"Fire Safety Science","volume":"39 1","pages":"486-498"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76614779","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Spectral Aspects of Bench-Scale Flammability Testing: Application to Hardwood Pyrolysis","authors":"M. Chaos","doi":"10.3801/iafss.fss.11-165","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3801/iafss.fss.11-165","url":null,"abstract":"The anaerobic pyrolysis of wood material used to palletize commodities is studied in a Fire Propagation Apparatus (FPA) for a range of heating conditions relevant to fires. The data collected, consisting of mass loss rate, cumulative mass loss, and surface temperature, are used to determine model-specific material properties using inverse modeling and optimization methodologies previously developed in our laboratory. However, in this study, considerable effort is placed on determining the radiation environment that characterizes the FPA tests as well as how the radiation interacts with the samples. This is done on the basis of the recognition that boundary conditions have a pronounced effect on the output of a given pyrolysis model and, thus, the optimization results. The spectral radiance from the FPA heaters as well as the absorptivity/emissivity of the material surface are measured herein. The spectral features of the surface indicate that markedly different effective emissivities and absorptivities can be exhibited by the material depending on the spectral distribution of incident radiation. These effects are included in the pyrolysis model used to extract model-specific material properties so that the optimization process can, in a sense, be decoupled from boundary conditions. Therefore, it is expected that the approach described in this study can ensure that the derived model-specific properties can be applied to practical scenarios that are characterized by radiation environments that differ from those in bench-scale test apparatuses such as the FPA.","PeriodicalId":12145,"journal":{"name":"Fire Safety Science","volume":"377 3","pages":"165-178"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72456023","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jin-Kyung Kim, B. Meacham, Haejun Park, T. Hutchinson, E. Pantoli
{"title":"Fire Performance of a Full-Scale Building Subjected to Earthquake Motions: Test Specimen, Seismic Motions and Performance of Fire Protection Systems","authors":"Jin-Kyung Kim, B. Meacham, Haejun Park, T. Hutchinson, E. Pantoli","doi":"10.3801/iafss.fss.11-732","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3801/iafss.fss.11-732","url":null,"abstract":"A full-scale, five-story building specimen was erected on the Large Outdoor High Performance Shake Table (LHPOST) at the University of California, San Diego, outfitted with various nonstructural components and systems (NCSs), and subjected to a series of earthquake motion tests and compartment scale fire tests. The aim of these tests was to increase knowledge on the performance of NCS and contents during earthquakes and post-earthquake fire events. An overview of the building specimen, earthquake motions and performance of NCS critical to building fire safety are presented. Outcomes illustrate the extent of damage to compartment barriers, facade systems, egress systems and fire protection systems that could occur given different levels of ground motion, and how such damage could impact occupant life safety and emergency response during fires in earthquake-damaged buildings. Details of the postearthquake fire tests and fire performance observations are presented in an associated paper [1].","PeriodicalId":12145,"journal":{"name":"Fire Safety Science","volume":"10 1","pages":"732-745"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84302762","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Zhenkun Wu, Haihang Li, Yaping He, Dechuang Zhou, Jian Wang
{"title":"Comparative evaluation method for fire safety design of large storage spaces","authors":"Zhenkun Wu, Haihang Li, Yaping He, Dechuang Zhou, Jian Wang","doi":"10.3801/iafss.fss.11-933","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3801/iafss.fss.11-933","url":null,"abstract":"The design philosophy “the safety level of a performance-based designed building should not be lower than that of a prescriptive” with objectives of property protection and life safety was implemented in this paper. Three countervailing solutions were adopted to reduce fire risk in the 11664 m 2 case storage. Besides, a virtual prescriptive storage with identical length-width ratio and similar ventilation conditions as the performance-based was designed for comparison. After designing the fire development event tree and simulating six fire scenarios using FDS, the two objectives were achieved as fire severity and risk of property loss of the performance-based design storage were found to be no higher than those of the prescriptive design and ASETs were greater than RSETs for all fire scenarios.","PeriodicalId":12145,"journal":{"name":"Fire Safety Science","volume":"4 1","pages":"933-943"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78709853","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Use of the Extreme Value Analysis in Determining Annual Probability of Exceedance for Bushfire Protection Design","authors":"Grahame Douglas, Yaping He, Yang Xiang, E. Morris","doi":"10.3801/iafss.fss.11-1379","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3801/iafss.fss.11-1379","url":null,"abstract":"Historically extreme value analysis has been used to guide human activities against many forms of natural hazards such as floods, storms, heat waves and wind. However, it has not been used for extreme fire weather assessment. This may be because forest fire danger index is a composite of differing parameters which may not be regarded as being associated with adverse fire weather individually, however, collectively may result in Extreme fire weather conditions. This paper offers new insights in the use of the extreme value analysis for the McArthur Forest Fire Danger Index (FFDI) so as to provide a scientific basis for planning, development and building construction in bushfire prone areas. The underlying principle is to use the recurrence of fire weather as measured by FFDI as the planning or design fire weather reference. The recurrence is determined by the applying the Generalised Extreme Value Analysis to local historical weather data of limited time period. The resultant distribution is fitted with an appropriate regression curve which allows the extrapolation beyond the available weather data recording period. The method is applied to a number of weather districts in the state of New South Wales of Australia. The derived FFDIs corresponding to the nominated recurrence is compared with the FFDIs based on traditional empirical methods.","PeriodicalId":12145,"journal":{"name":"Fire Safety Science","volume":"44 1","pages":"1379-1392"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81505650","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Yusuke Shintani, T. Nagaoka, Y. Deguchi, Kazuyo Harada
{"title":"An Application Method of Free Burn HRR Data to Room Fire Scenarios","authors":"Yusuke Shintani, T. Nagaoka, Y. Deguchi, Kazuyo Harada","doi":"10.3801/iafss.fss.11-276","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3801/iafss.fss.11-276","url":null,"abstract":"An application method of free burn heat release rate (HRR) data for a single seater sofa to predict the burning behavior in a compartment is proposed. A single seater sofa was burnt in an open environment to measure the HRR using a furniture calorimeter. The time-HRR curve was fitted with a model of burning of a cubic polyurethane block developed earlier. The model included the flame spread over horizontal, downward and lateral directions. The flame spread rates were increased if the block received radiative heat from external heat sources other than from the flame. The thermal radiation feedback from the flame, smoke layer, and heated wall surfaces was coupled with the burning model. Using the coupled model, the burning and spread rate of several sofas and a table in a small compartment was calculated and compared with experimental results. The model could reproduce the trend for the increase in HRR qualitatively. However, the time to spread to an adjacent object was not in good agreement. If the time to spread was given input to the model, other parameters such as compartment temperature and so on could be calculated with reasonable agreement.","PeriodicalId":12145,"journal":{"name":"Fire Safety Science","volume":"7 1","pages":"276-288"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78597429","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Simulating Vented Maize Starch Explosions in a 236 m3 Silo","authors":"T. Skjold","doi":"10.3801/iafss.fss.11-1469","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3801/iafss.fss.11-1469","url":null,"abstract":"The paper describes computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations of a series of large-scale dust explosion experiments performed in a 236-m 3 silo. Mechanical suspensions were generated by pneumatically injecting maize starch into a 22 m high silo. The experiments included tests with injection from the bottom and from the top of the silo, but the present study only considers bottom injection. The clouds were ignited at various heights above ground. The same experiments have been simulated previously, but the current work involves an updated version of the CFD code and explores the effect of grid resolution on the simulation results. The results from the simulations are in good agreement with the experimental data, and confirm the observation that the reduced explosion pressure in long slender silos is very sensitive to ignition location. The simulation results highlight the effect of dust distribution within the silo, and reproduce the characteristic pressure oscillations, with frequency in the range 4-7 Hz, observed in some of the tests.","PeriodicalId":12145,"journal":{"name":"Fire Safety Science","volume":"20 1","pages":"1469-1480"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87368200","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}