Products of Wood Smolder and Their Relation to Wood-Burning Stoves.
Products of Wood Smolder and Their Relation to
Wood-Burning Stoves.
(3612 K)
Ohlemiller, T. J.; Shaub, W. M.
NBSIR 88-3767; 91 p. May 1988.
Sponsor:
Department of Energy, Washington, DC
Available from:
National Technical Information Service
Order number: PB88-215157
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.
