- Author
- Tu, K. M. | Babrauskas, V.
- Title
- Calibration of a Burn Room For Fire Tests on Furnishings. Final Report.
- Coporate
- National Bureau of Standards, Gaithersburg, MD
- Report
- NBS TN 981, December 1978, 59 p.
- Distribution
- Available from National Technical Information Service
- Keywords
- buoyant plumes | convection | fire tests | flammability | heat transfer | radiation
- Abstract
- A series of ten tests, using a diffusion flame gas burner as heat source, was conducted in a full-size room designed for furnishings flammability tests. The gas burner was used to release known heat rates and to permit steady state measurements of energy and mass flow. The gas burner fires simulated preflashover conditions, with peak temperatures outside the burner plume of around 300 deg. C. The measurements obtained were compared with available theoretical room fire descriptions and published heat transfer values. The results showed the importance of a precise determination of the inflow and exhaust velocities at the doorway. It was demonstrated that a large number of doorway velocity probes is required to accurately obtain a room heat and mass balance. A calculational procedure was developed for analyzing the results which should be useful for future analysis of furnishings experiments.