Assessing the Accuracy of a Physical Fire Model for Obtaining Smoke Toxic Potency Data.
Assessing the Accuracy of a Physical Fire Model for
Obtaining Smoke Toxic Potency Data.
(244 K)
Gann, R. G.; Averill, J. D.; Marsh, N. D.; Nyden, M. R.
Volume 2;
Interflam 2007. (Interflam '07). International
Interflam Conference, 11th Proceedings. Volume 2.
September 3-5, 2007, London, England, 1021-1032 pp,
2007.
Keywords:
toxicity; smoke; fire models; fire tests; room burns;
combustion products; standards; building codes;
flashover; couches; carbon monoxide; cables; carbon
dioxide; occupants; FT-IR
Abstract:
A principal component of the engineering of a building
is providing for the safety of occupants and responders
in the event of a fire. This includes estimation of the
time available for people to escape or to find safe
refuge within. An accurate, quantitative methodology for
this estimation is critical. As noted in a recent
analysis by Hall, some 310,000 to 670,000 people in the
United States alone are annually exposed to smoke from
reported home fires. He further found that: "Roughly
half of the deaths and roughly two-thirds of the
injuries could be prevented were the times to
incapacitating exposures lengthened sufficiently to
result in a more favorable outcome." Today's fire safety
professionals use diverse and ad hoc approaches to make
these estimates, in part due to there being no widely
accepted methodology of known accuracy for generating
the smoke toxic potency data needed as input. There is a
wide range of combustible items used in buildings. It is
unrealistic to expect a comprehensive database of human
or surrogate animal measurements of the smoke toxicity
from real-scale burning of these items. Rather, data are
commonly obtained from measurements of the toxic
components of the smoke that are generated when test
specimens are combusted in a bench-scale physical fire
model.
