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Fire smoke and combustion characterization of materials in an enclosed chamber

Matsuyama, Yumi
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1633641534362998

Abstract Details

2021, Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, EMC - Mechanical Engineering.
Statistics show that many fatalities in a fire event are caused by smoke inhalation, where hot smoke injured or burned the respiratory system or toxic gases exceed the exposure limits. Certain gases in smoke only require small concentrations to be lethal to the victims. Smoke testing method using a smoke density chamber has been developed at NIST and has been used for compliance testing. However, the smoke chamber is not used as extensively for research in comparison to other standard equipment such as the cone calorimeter, nor has the burning environment been studied numerically. The numerical simulation of the burning environment can reveal the mixing of gases and the fire ventilation conditions in the enclosed chamber, thus enabling the interpretation of the measured concentrations of gases sampled from only one port. Therefore, the smoke chamber method combined with the numerical simulation via Fire Dynamics Simulator (developed by NIST) shows a potential for further research and fire hazard testing, especially if material pyrolysis is incorporated into the model in the future. For this research, two groups of materials are studied: cellulosic materials (wood), and synthetic polymeric materials. All experiments are conducted with the specimen oriented vertically or horizontally in a standard smoke density chamber at an imposed radiant heat flux of 25 kW/m2, and a Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) gas analyzer is connected to a single gas-sampling port in the smoke chamber. The relationship between the progress of the wood pyrolysis (or charring) and the production of the toxic gases in the wood smoke is studied. Black polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) is numerically modeled with a modified global reaction, with results within reasonable agreement with the experiment. Parameters such as the heat release rate and heat of gasification which were previously only available for the cone calorimeter, is calculated within ranges reported in literature. Finally, select polymers found in common materials are tested between flaming (induced ignition) and non-flaming (heated) cases to determine how ignition, or lack thereof, affects smoke toxicity, where toxicity is determined by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) recommended exposure limits for select toxicants.
Fumiaki Takahashi (Advisor)
Gary Wnek (Committee Member)
Ya-Ting Liao (Committee Member)
James T'ien (Committee Member)
122 p.
Engineering
FDS; fire toxicity; smoke obscurity; wood pyrolysis; moisture content; carbon monoxide; acrolein; formaldehyde

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Matsuyama, Y. (2021). Fire smoke and combustion characterization of materials in an enclosed chamber [Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1633641534362998

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Matsuyama, Yumi. Fire smoke and combustion characterization of materials in an enclosed chamber. 2021. Case Western Reserve University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1633641534362998.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Matsuyama, Yumi. "Fire smoke and combustion characterization of materials in an enclosed chamber." Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University, 2021. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1633641534362998

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

case1633641534362998
124
© 2021, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License Fire smoke and combustion characterization of materials in an enclosed chamber by Yumi Matsuyama is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by Case Western Reserve University School of Graduate Studies and OhioLINK.
Release 3.2.12