- Author
-
Atreya, A.
- Title
- Pyrolysis, Ignition and Fire Spread on Horizontal Surface of Wood.
- Coporate
- Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA
- Sponsor
- National Bureau of Standards, Gaithersburg, MD
- Report
-
NBS GCR 83-449; Home Fire Proj. Tech. Rpt. 59
April 1984
439 p.
- Distribution
- AVAILABLE FROM National Technical Information Service (NTIS), Technology Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, Springfield, VA 22161. Telephone: 1-800-553-6847 or 703-605-6000; Fax: 703-605-6900; Rush Service (Telephone Orders Only) 800-553-6847; Website: http://www.ntis.gov
- Contract
- NB81NADA2026
- Keywords
-
fire growth
|
fire spread
|
heat transfer
|
ignition
|
pyrolysis
|
radiation
|
thermal decomposition
|
wood
|
weight loss
- Abstract
- In this work, experimental techniques and methods were developed to study the growth of fire from a point ignition to a burning area of two feet in diameter. Numerous experiments on ten different kinds of wood were conducted to determine the dominant mechanisms of fire spread and to obtain reliale chemical and physical data. Simultaneous measurements of fire diameter, weight loss, surface temperature, forward flame radiation, total convective and radiative energy, depletion of O2, production of CO2, CO, total unburned hydrocarbons, and water were made. The study also developed a theory to predict transient fire growth on the basis of the following observations: (i) that fire spread may be treated as a continuous ignition process, (ii) forward gas-phase heat transfer is a local phenomenon independent of fire size, (iii) forward radiative heat transfer is the primary accelerating mechanism, (iv) energetics due to desorption of adsorbed moisture is far more important than heat of thermal decomposition of wood, (v) reradiation from wood and char is the primary heat loss mechanism, (vi) conduction of the ehat parallel to the spread surface does not contribute significantly to the fire spread process.