- Author
- Gross, D. | Robertson, A. F.
- Title
- Experimental Fires in Enclosures.
- Coporate
- National Bureau of Standards, Gaithersburg, MD
- Report
- NBS 8147, December 12, 1963, 41 p.
- Distribution
- AVAILABLE FROM: National Archives, Civilian Records, Room 2800, 8601 Adelphia Road, College Park, MD 20740-6001, Telephone: 301-713-7230
- Contract
- NBS-PROJECT-1002-11-10122
- Keywords
- enclosures; tests; equipment
- Abstract
- Results are presented of experimental measurements of the mass rates of burning, temperatures and gas compositions in model enclosures of three sizes. Interest was confined to the fully-developed period of burning in which the burning rate of a combustible fiberboard crib was limited by the size and shape of the ventilation opening. The burning rate was found to be generally proportional to [equation] (A=area, h=height of window opening), but a characteristic transition region was found for each enclosure which resulted in an abrupt shift in the data line. Burning rate data were correlated in terms of the ventilation parameter [equation] and the exposed surface area of the crib. The overall process involved in enclosure fires appears to be a combined gravity-controlled fluid dynamic regime and a radiation-controlled thermal regime. The dimensionless Froude group is the criterion for similarity in a gravity (buoyancy) controlled regime, and from the limited agreement found among the data for the two larger enclosures, this group appears to include the essential parameters in the scaling of burning rates of fires in geometrically similar enclosures.