- Author
- Quintiere, J. G.
- Title
- Some Observations on Building Corridor Fires.
- Coporate
- National Bureau of Standards, Washington, DC
- Book or Conf
- Combustion Institute, Symposium (International) on Combustion, 15th, August 25-31, 1974, Tokyo, Japan, 163-174 p., 1974
- Keywords
- corridors | fire hazards | floor coverings | room fires | fire propagation | flameover | fire spread | fire growth | experiments
- Abstract
- Full-scale corridor fire experiments designed to evaluate the potential fire hazard of floor covering materials exposed to a room fire are described. A phenomenological account of events leading to rapid fire propagation along the corridor is presented for one experiment. Mechanisms responsible for the rapid fire propagation, termed flameover, are explored through measurements and analysis of the data. Before flameover the corridor floor is heated by radiation which enables flames to spread into the corridor. On the wood floor considered, flame spread velocity accelerates from ~10-2 ft/sec to ~1 ft/sec following flameover. Causative factors of flameover appear to be the increase in flame height of the floor fire, and a reduction of air supply to the burn room due to a change in flow pattern between the corridor and burn room. Calculations show that air flow to bhe burn room steadily drops as the corridor fire develops resulting in incomplete combustion for the room fire.