- Author
-
Klein, D. P.
- Title
- Reduced-Scale Modeling of Mobile Home Fires: A Progress Report. Interim Report.
- Coporate
- National Bureau of Standards, Gaithersburg, MD
- Sponsor
- Department of Housing and Urban Development, Washington, DC
- Report
-
NBSIR 81-2333,
December 1981,
64 p.
- Distribution
- Available from National Technical Information Service
- Keywords
-
compartment fires
|
fire tests
|
flashover
|
interior finishes
|
mobile homes
|
models
|
room fires
- Abstract
- A series of fire test was conducted in the bedroom of a single-wide mobile home and in a quarter-scale model of that bedroom. The objectives of the test were (1) to evaluate the relationship between fire buildup in the reduced-scale and full-scale enclosures and (2) to determine the feasibility of using a reduced-scale model test to assess the potential contribution of particular combinations of interior finish materials to fire growth in a mobile home. The model tests simulated the phenomena of fire growth and flashover; however, the time to flashover occured later in the model that in the full-scale bedroom. Flashover was taken as the time at which the level of radiation at the center of the floor reached 2 W/cm(2). Several modifications to the model were examined but none adequately corrected the time delay to flashover. However, by monitoring the upper air temperature in the model, the occurrence or nonoccurrence of flashover for corresponding full-scale tests could be reliably predicted. Therefore, the use of a quarter-scale model was judged to be feasible.