Will It Support a Self-Propagating Fire? (Abstract/Presentation)
Will It Support a Self-Propagating Fire?
(Abstract/Presentation)
(273 K)
DeRis, J. L.
NIST SP 998; May 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.
