- Author
-
Ohlemiller, T. J.
|
Shaub, W. M.
- Title
- Products of Wood Smolder and Their Relation to Wood-Burning Stoves.
- Coporate
- National Bureau of Standards, Gaithersburg, MD
- Sponsor
- Department of Energy, Washington, DC
- Report
-
NBSIR 88-3767,
May 1988,
91 p.
- Distribution
- Available from National Technical Information Service
- Keywords
-
wood
|
combustion products
|
smoke
|
smoldering combustion
|
air pollution
|
wood stoves
- Abstract
- The smoldering combustion of solid wood is a process pertinent to both fire safety and to the generation of air pollutants in wood burning stoves; fundamental aspects of this process are examined here in order to provide insights into both of these problem areas. The wood configuration employed here was designed to permit self-sustained smolder with visual access. The sample was in the form of a U-shaped channel 74 cm long with 6.4 cm thick walls. This sample was contqained in a steel chamber which confined incoming air to flow along the interior of the channel. Smoldering was initiated on the interior surface of the upstream end of this channel and it propagated in the same direction as the airflow (forward smolder). Tests were conducted with both red oad and white pine and both woods behaved quite similarly. In separate tests the air flow velocity (referred to the initial cross section of the channel) was varied from about 9 to 22 cm/sec. At the low end of this range, the smoldering process was prone to extinction; at the high end it was increasingly like to transition into flaming combustion.