TY - JOUR
T1 - Prediction of horizontal flame spread using a theoretical and experimental approach
AU - Chen, Yonggang
AU - Motevalli, Vahid
AU - Delichatsios, Michael A.
AU - Tatem, Patricia A.
N1 - Funding Information:
The experimental work described in this paper was performed at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. The work was funded by the Office of Naval Research, Code 334, under the damage control task of the Surface Ship Haul, Mechanical, and Electrical Technology Program PE0602121N. Part of the manuscript was prepared while one of us (Y.C.) was with the Advanced Fuel Research, Inc. The encouragement and understanding of Dr. Michael A. Serio are appreciated.
PY - 1998
Y1 - 1998
N2 - A new methodology has been developed for obtaining properties that characterize creeping flame spread over solid materials and for predicting creeping flame spread using these properties. These properties have been reduced to two quantities that are deduced from present measurements or from other tests: the convective energy per unit length, E' from the flame to material near the pyrolysis front and the gaseous thermal length, δg, generated by the opposed flow. The convective energy determines the flame energy input modified by gaseous chemical kinetics. For fast kinetics, it is independent of the opposed flow velocity. The gaseous thermal length depends on magnitude and profile of the opposed flow velocity. For creeping flame spread at normal gravity conditions, the derived convective energy flux, E' was determined to be 31 W/m for particle board and 97 W/m for PMMA. The thermal length, δg, is 1.36 mm for PMMA and 1.22 for particle board. An additional important contribution of this work is a careful consideration of the effect of external heat fluxes on flame spread, including reradiation losses, acting on the pyrolyzing side of flame front. Neglect of these effects has led to misleading or incomplete interpretation of previous creeping flame spread experiments or test methods.
AB - A new methodology has been developed for obtaining properties that characterize creeping flame spread over solid materials and for predicting creeping flame spread using these properties. These properties have been reduced to two quantities that are deduced from present measurements or from other tests: the convective energy per unit length, E' from the flame to material near the pyrolysis front and the gaseous thermal length, δg, generated by the opposed flow. The convective energy determines the flame energy input modified by gaseous chemical kinetics. For fast kinetics, it is independent of the opposed flow velocity. The gaseous thermal length depends on magnitude and profile of the opposed flow velocity. For creeping flame spread at normal gravity conditions, the derived convective energy flux, E' was determined to be 31 W/m for particle board and 97 W/m for PMMA. The thermal length, δg, is 1.36 mm for PMMA and 1.22 for particle board. An additional important contribution of this work is a careful consideration of the effect of external heat fluxes on flame spread, including reradiation losses, acting on the pyrolyzing side of flame front. Neglect of these effects has led to misleading or incomplete interpretation of previous creeping flame spread experiments or test methods.
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U2 - 10.1016/S0082-0784(98)80137-9
DO - 10.1016/S0082-0784(98)80137-9
M3 - Conference article
AN - SCOPUS:0032270829
SN - 0082-0784
VL - 27
SP - 2797
EP - 2805
JO - Symposium (International) on Combustion
JF - Symposium (International) on Combustion
IS - 2
T2 - 27th International Symposium on Combustion
Y2 - 2 August 1998 through 7 August 1998
ER -