- Author
-
Mehta, A. K.
|
Wong, F.
- Title
- Measurement of Flammability and Burn Potential of Fabrics. Progress Report 2.
- Coporate
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge
- Sponsor
- National Science Foundation, Washington, DC
- Report
-
Progress Report 2
June 30, 1971
45 p.
- Contract
- GRANT-GK-27188
PROJECT-DSR-72894
- Keywords
-
fabrics
|
flammability measurements
|
burns (injuries)
|
surface temperature
|
fire spread
|
skin burns (human)
- Abstract
- Progress during this quarter has included the fabrication and testing of a rod-type skin simulant formed by electron beam welding. The performance tests have shown this simulant to have the design properties for simulating the values of kcp and k/cp for skin with a stretch factor of 28.4 and performance as a semi-infinite solid for exposure times up to about 30 seconds. A second simulant, made by electroforming the simulant surface on the rods, has been completed but not tested. A computer program has been developed and tested for converting to a criterion of burn injury the temperature history of the surface of a semi-infinite solid exposed to thermal inputs of arbitrarily varying intensity in time. A representative test of the burning of a sample of cotton batiste thus treated using the Henriques damage integral as a burn criterion predicts serious skin damage for the test conditions (cloth spaced 1/2 in. above the surface of the transite skin simulant). A preliminary discussion is presented of fire spread theory together with a dimensional analysis of the problem. A constant humidity test chamber for flame spread and burn damage studies has been substantially completed.