- Author
-
Lattimer, B. Y.
|
Vandsburger, U.
|
Roby, R. J.
- Title
- Carbon Monoxide Levels in Structure Fires: Effects of Wood in the Upper Layer of a Post-Flashover Compartment Fire.
- Coporate
- Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ., Blacksburg
Hughes Associates, Inc., Baltimore, MD
- Journal
-
Fire Technology,
Vol. 34,
No. 4,
325-355,
November 1998
- Sponsor
- National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD
- Contract
- NIST-GRANT-60NANB4D1651
- Keywords
-
carbon monoxide
|
structures
|
wood
|
compartment fires
|
flashover
|
data analysis
|
fuels
|
experiments
|
oxidation
|
global equivalence ratio
- Abstract
- This experimental study was performed to determine the effects of wood pyrolyzing in a high-temperature, vitiated compartment upper layer on the environment inside the com-partment and an adjacent hallway. This was done by comparing species concentrations and temperature measurements from tests with and without wood in the compartment upper layer. Experiments were performed with a window-type opening and a door-type opening between the compartment and the hallway. In these tests, the wood in the compartment upper layer caused CO concentrations inside the compartment to increase, on average, to 10.1% dry, which is approximately 3 times higher than levels measured without wood in the upper layer. Down the hallway 3.6 m from the compartment with wood in the upper layer, CO concentrations were measured to be as high as 2.5% dry. The use of the global equivalence ratio concept to predict species formation in a compartment was explored for situations where wood or other fuels pyrolyze in a vitiated upper layer at a high temperature.