- Author
-
DeRis, J. L.
- Title
- Will It Support a Self-Propagating Fire? (Abstract/Presentation)
- Coporate
- FM Global
- Report
-
NIST SP 998
May 2003
- Book or Conf
- Extended Abstracts and Presentations from the Workshop on Fire Growth and Spread on Objects, March 4-6, 2002, National Institute of Standards and Technology,
Peacock, R. D.; Pitts, W. M., Editors,
2003
- Keywords
-
fire growth
|
fire spread
|
fire resistant materials
|
equations
|
heat release rate
- Abstract
- Regulators need to know whether (or not) a fire resistive material will ignite rather than how long it takes to ignite when subjected to a given heat flux. The former (i.e. go/no go) question can be addressed as a steady state process, and thus is easier to answer both experimentally and theoretically. In a similar manner regulators need to know whether (or not) a fire resistive material can support a self-propagating fire rather than how fast the fire might propagate when subjected to a given exposure fire. Once again the former (i.e. go/no go) question is easier to answer both experimentally and theoretically because it can be addressed as a steady state process. Here we develop a mathematical model for whether or not a fire resistive material can support a self-propagating fire in the parallel panel geometry shown in Figure 3. It is a simple geometry. It subjects the test material to its own flame heat flux. It is a large enough to be realistic, yet uses a minimum of test material. The test is regarded as conservative by FM Global engineers.