- Author
-
Cooper, L. Y.
- Title
- Development of Hazardous Conditions in Enclosures with Growing Fires. Final Report.
- Coporate
- National Bureau of Standards, Gaithersburg, MD
- Journal
-
Combustion Science and Technology,
Vol. 33,
No. 5-6,
279-297,
1983
- Report
-
NBSIR 82-2622,
January 1983,
32 p.
- Distribution
- Available from National Technical Information Service
- Book or Conf
- Combustion Institute/Eastern States Section. Fall Technical Meeting, 1982. December 14-16, 1982,
Atlantic City, NJ,
1-4 p.,
1983
- Keywords
-
combustion products
|
compartment fires
|
egress
|
enclosure
|
fire detection
|
fire growth
|
hazard analysis
|
mathematical models
|
room fires
|
smoke movement
|
tenability limits
- Abstract
- A mathematical model for simulating the environment in enclosures during the growth stage of hazardous fires was developed previously. To use the mode one must specify the energy release rate of the fire, certain heat transfer parameters, the area and height of the enclosure and the elevation of the fire above the floor. Solution to the model's equations would yield the time-varying thickness, temperature, and product to combustion concentrations of an upper smoke layer which starts to drop from the enclosure ceiling at the time of ignition. In this paper the model equations are solved for the general class of fires whose energy release rate, Q, and product of combustion generation rates, C, are approximately proportional to t(n) (t is time and n greater than or equal to 0). For such fires, general results for the complete solution history of the enclosure environment are obtained and presented in the form of graphs, and where possible, by closed form analytic expressions. Use of the results is illustrated in two example problems. The first of these involves a problem in smoldering combustion where, according to experimental data, the combustion zone can be simulated by an n=1 fire. The second involves a prediction of the environment produced in an enclosure which contains an n=2 fire, which simulates a specific, large-scale, flaming fire hazard.