- Author
- Kashiwagi, T.
- Title
- Flammability of Plastics. Part 1. Ignition Temperatures. Letters to the Editor.
- Coporate
- National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD
- Journal
- Fire and Materials, Vol. 12, No. 4, 141-142, September 1988
- Keywords
- plastics | flammability | ignition | combustion
- Identifiers
- effect of radiant intensity
- Abstract
- The study of ignition temperature of many plastic materials by H. E. Thomson and D. D. Drysdale is a very valuable contribution to a field where available data have been scant. In their paper they inferred that a difference in ignition surface temperature for Plexiglas G could be caused by the use of an electrically heated wire as a pilot and possibly by spontaneous ignition with the CO2 laser. Also, it appears that they think that the ignition surface temperature of one material should be nearly the same without regard to the emission spectra of the external radiant source and the radiant flux level. In order to clarify the difference in ignition surface temperature and to improve our understanding of the piloted ignition mechanism, I describe below my interpretation of my results to which they referred and of the ignition surface temperature characteristics.