Assessing the Predictive Capability for Real-scale Residential Upholstered Furniture Mock-up Fires Using Cone Calorimeter Measurements PDF Download
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Author: William M. Pitts Publisher: ISBN: Category : Flame spread Languages : en Pages : 589
Book Description
This is the first of three reports describing a study designed to assess the feasibility of utilizing small-scale measurements in a cone calorimeter as inputs for predicting the burning (flaming) behavior of real-scale residential upholstered furniture (RUF). Here the focus is the experimental approach and results for the real-scale experiments. A literature review provides the rationale for our interest in RUF and summarizes previous efforts to characterize and regulate its burning behavior. The RUF items considered are mockups consisting of four cushions arranged in a chair configuration and mounted on a metal stand. The effects on burning behavior of changes in five types of materials - Fire Barrier, Polyurethane Foam, Polyester Fiber Wrap, Upholstery Cover Fabric, and Sewing Thread - previously identified as possibly affecting RUF burning are considered. Four of the material factors have two conditions, while Barrier has three (i.e., no barrier, or one of two barrier types). A reduced factorial design utilizing 20 different material combinations is used along with a minimum of two repeats for each combination. The experimental behaviors of interest are flame spread (characterized by time-resolved flame edge contours on the back and seat cushions) and fire growth (characterized by heat release rate measurements). A variety of parameters are used to characterize the temporal variations of both. Graphical representations of the results suggest that three of the factors (Barrier, Foam, and Fabric) have easily identified effects on mock-up burning behavior. This finding is confirmed by a variety of analyses showing these three factors have statistically significant effects on mock-up burning behaviors, with Barrier and Fabric having strong and roughly equal effects and Foam somewhat weaker effects. Changes in Fiber Wrap or Thread result in no statistically significant effects on the parameters. It is also shown that interactions between Barrier and Foam are statistically significant and will need to be considered in approaches designed to predict burning behavior. In addition to characterization of flame spread and fire growth, supplementary measurements of mass and radiative heat flux at six locations around the mock-ups provide additional insights concerning mock-up burning behavior. The real-scale results are compared to previous studies to provide additional understanding of RUF burning. and its dependence on material properties.
Author: William M. Pitts Publisher: ISBN: Category : Flame spread Languages : en Pages : 589
Book Description
This is the first of three reports describing a study designed to assess the feasibility of utilizing small-scale measurements in a cone calorimeter as inputs for predicting the burning (flaming) behavior of real-scale residential upholstered furniture (RUF). Here the focus is the experimental approach and results for the real-scale experiments. A literature review provides the rationale for our interest in RUF and summarizes previous efforts to characterize and regulate its burning behavior. The RUF items considered are mockups consisting of four cushions arranged in a chair configuration and mounted on a metal stand. The effects on burning behavior of changes in five types of materials - Fire Barrier, Polyurethane Foam, Polyester Fiber Wrap, Upholstery Cover Fabric, and Sewing Thread - previously identified as possibly affecting RUF burning are considered. Four of the material factors have two conditions, while Barrier has three (i.e., no barrier, or one of two barrier types). A reduced factorial design utilizing 20 different material combinations is used along with a minimum of two repeats for each combination. The experimental behaviors of interest are flame spread (characterized by time-resolved flame edge contours on the back and seat cushions) and fire growth (characterized by heat release rate measurements). A variety of parameters are used to characterize the temporal variations of both. Graphical representations of the results suggest that three of the factors (Barrier, Foam, and Fabric) have easily identified effects on mock-up burning behavior. This finding is confirmed by a variety of analyses showing these three factors have statistically significant effects on mock-up burning behaviors, with Barrier and Fabric having strong and roughly equal effects and Foam somewhat weaker effects. Changes in Fiber Wrap or Thread result in no statistically significant effects on the parameters. It is also shown that interactions between Barrier and Foam are statistically significant and will need to be considered in approaches designed to predict burning behavior. In addition to characterization of flame spread and fire growth, supplementary measurements of mass and radiative heat flux at six locations around the mock-ups provide additional insights concerning mock-up burning behavior. The real-scale results are compared to previous studies to provide additional understanding of RUF burning. and its dependence on material properties.
Author: Marcelo M. Hirschler Publisher: ISBN: Category : Commercial products Languages : en Pages : 25
Book Description
Many consumer products exhibit very poor fire performance (based on general principles of fire hazard), particularly when fire safety requirements for such products do not exist. They include television sets, upholstered furniture, mattresses, personal automobiles, garbage cans, and playground structures for children. This work indicates that the best way to ensure a consumer product exhibits fire performance associated with appropriately low fire hazard is to conduct full-scale heat release tests where all the interactions between the various components can be brought out. The most critical property to be measured is the heat release in those tests. However, full-scale heat release tests are unlikely to be regulatory in nature for most products. In that case, small heat release tests, such as the cone calorimeter, can be used to provide the proper predictability. The aircraft industry has long been using data from another small-scale heat release test (the Ohio State University calorimeter) for regulation, with great success. In this article, several series of full scale heat release tests will be presented. Such tests were conducted on: (a) mattresses (both residential and institutional), (b) residential upholstered furniture, (c) wall coverings, (d) typical plastic garbage cans, (e) Christmas trees, and (e) a children's playground structure. In the article there will also be a discussion of some small-scale heat release tests. All the full-scale heat release fire tests on mattresses, upholstered furniture, wall coverings, and playground structure were conducted indoors, usually in standard rooms (such as the ASTM room), and heat release (by oxygen consumption calorimetry) as well as smoke release was measured, while also making various other measurements and visual observations. The garbage can test was conducted in the same standard room, but only heat release was measured. The small-scale tests were conducted using standard fire test equipment such as the cone calorimeter. Tests conducted by NIST on mattresses, a passenger minivan and a garbage can were conducted indoors under a hood. The other full scale tests on passenger road vehicles were conducted outdoors. The results indicate that regulations permit the use of some consumer products in present use even though they are unsafe and that improved fire safety alternatives exist. Recommendations are presented. Reference is also made to predictive work.
Book Description
Cone calorimetric experiments of flexible polyurethane foam (FPUF) and FPUF covered with a variety of fire-blocking barrier fabrics (BFs) were used to characterize and rank the effectiveness of BFs for reducing the flammability of residential upholstered furniture (RUF). In addition to BF properties, it was demonstrated that the burning behaviors of the FPUF/BF composites were sensitive to a wide range of experimental parameters including the sample configuration, heat losses to the underlying support base, and the two-stage pyrolysis behavior of the FPUF. Measurements using thermocouples (TCs) placed within the FPUF provided insights on FPUF pyrolysis behavior, the collapse rate of FPUF, and the thermal protective properties of barrier materials. Seven out of 16 FPUF/BF composites exhibited flame extinction during testing. Five out of the seven composites reignited when the spark ignition source was reapplied. Reignition allowed BF effectiveness to be assessed even for cases with flame extinction. Heat release rate (HRR) temporal profiles were measured for bare FPUF and the FPUF/BF composites. For cases where large rapid changes in HRR, e.g., during flash burning of a BF, occurred, it was necessary to correct the profiles for the finite time response of the cone calorimeter. The HRR curves for FPUF consisted of two distinct burning periods which were previously associated with sequential burning of foam pyrolyzates derived from the isocyanate and deposited liquid polyol components used in its manufacture. Tests with two different underlying substrates demonstrated the sensitivity of the second-stage liquid burning to heat losses from the sample holder. The majority of the HRR curves for the FPUF/BF composites showed evidence for three-stage burning, which was attributed to initial flash burning of the BF followed by the two-stage burning of the underlying FPUF. For most of the composites, the largest HRR peak, which is often used as the primary indicator for a material's flammability, occurred during the short-lived burning of the BF. Since this is not an appropriate measure of BF effectiveness, it is proposed here that effectiveness should be based on a BF's ability to reduce the HRR from the underlying FPUF. In general, the presence of a BF was shown to reduce the HRR peak values during both FPUF burning stages. The magnitude of the peak associated with second-stage FPUF burning (denoted PHRR2) was deemed the most appropriate for characterizing the thermal protection provided by a BF. Since the times for PHRR2 also varied between composites, a measurement referred to as the peak fire growth rate (PFIGRA) parameter was calculated by dividing the PHRR by time since time to ignition was also considered for characterizing the BFs. Three possible classification schemes, each consisting of three classes, were introduced based on composite flame extinction and reignition behavior, PHRR2 values, and PFIGRA2 values. Each scheme provided differentiation between BF effectiveness. While the schemes were able to assess whether the BFs were particularly effective or ineffective, there were variations among classes of BFs having intermediate levels of effectiveness. Further work will be required to assess which, if any, of the classification schemes are most appropriate for predicting BF performance in RUF. BF performance was shown to be associated with four properties that were previously identified as important BF properties: BF flammability, gas permeability, thermal protection, and physical integrity. In addition, the current experiments indicate the presence and effectiveness of gas-phase active flame retardants in the BF can also play an important role. A limited number of tests were conducted to de-couple the effects of flame-retardant chemicals and physical effects of BFs on FPUF burning behavior. These tests showed that while flameretardant chemicals can be effective in quenching and extinguishing the flames, the presence of effective BF shells is also very important in lowering the HRR of burning FPUF.
Author: John Krasny Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 0080946879 Category : Technology & Engineering Languages : en Pages : 447
Book Description
The flammability of upholstered furniture is a major concern to engineers and others across a wide swath of organizations. This book was written to provide its audience with the science and engineering needed to better understand the combustibility of the products they manufacture, purchase, and try to extinguish. It addresses the science and engineering information needs of public and private sector fire technology personnel, including fire service students and officers, fire investigators, fire protection engineers, government officials; textile, chemical, and furniture industry personnel, or institutional furniture purchasers.
Author: Vytenis Babrauskas Publisher: ISBN: Category : Furniture Languages : en Pages : 24
Book Description
A bench-scale test method should accurately rank-order performance. This was the objective of bench-scale tests in the 19608. In the 19808, however, when a more quantitative performance is being sought, a successful bench-scale test should predict full-scale performance and should give data that are useful in numerical modeling. Fire development in a room involves three basic phenomena: ignition, flame spread and heat release rate. Of these, the heat release rate tends to be more important than the other two in most common fire scenarios. Heat release rates are difficult to determine accurately by direct, sensible-enthalpy measurements. About eight years ago the concept of oxygen consumption calorimetry was first introduced to simplify heat release measurements. It has recently been used in two test apparatuses developed at the National Bureau of Standards: a furniture calorimeter for conducting full-scale tests, and a cone calorimeter for conducting bench-scale tests. Bench-scale data have now been gathered on upholstered furniture and on wall-lining materials, with corresponding full-scale data available from furniture calorimeter or room fire measurements. In both cases, bench-scale measurements allowed the successful prediction of full-scale data for variables of interest, which were the peak rate of heat release and the time to flashover. Ignition behavior was seen to be important for wall materials, but less 80 for furniture, while the role of flame spread is still being studied.
Author: V. Babrauskas Publisher: ISBN: Category : Chairs Languages : en Pages : 17
Book Description
In an earlier study a full-scale furniture calorimeter was used to determine the heat release rates for upholstered chairs containing various construction materials. Samples of these same material combinations have now been tested in a bench-scale apparatus, the cone calorimeter. A correlation was established between bench-scale and full-scale data. Thus, it appears that prediction of flashover potential of a single upholstered item may be possible by using bench-scale results.
Author: Richard D. Peacock Publisher: DIANE Publishing ISBN: 9780788100581 Category : Languages : en Pages : 76
Book Description
Presents the types of analyses that can be used to examine large-scale room fire test data to prepare the data for comparison with zone-based fire models. The base of experimental data ranges in complexity from one room tests with individual furniture items to a series of tests conducted in a multiple story hotel equipped with a zoned smoke control system. Graphs and diagrams.
Author: William M. Pitts
Author: William M. Pitts
Author: Linda Makovická Osvaldová
Author: Marcelo M. Hirschler
Author: National Institute of Standards and Technology (U.S.)
Author: Shonali Nazar©♭
Author: John Krasny
Author: Vytenis Babrauskas
Author: Vytenis Babrauskas
Author: V. Babrauskas
Author: Richard D. Peacock