Citation

Grant G, Drysdale D. Fire Safety J. 1995; 24(3): 247-278.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1995, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

An important European research initiative 'Major Hazards Arising from Fires in Warehouses and Chemical Stores' has recently concluded; Edinburgh University has contributed both experimental and theoretical determinations of the rate of upward flame spread on corrugated fibreboard packaging. The theory presented here is a development of a recently published thermal model of upward flame spread; the model is in the form of a Volterra integral equation which is solved for the time-dependent flame spread velocity. The main advance over the previous theory lies in the modelling of burnout behind the pyrolysis region. The original theory, with no burnout, always predicts self-extinguishment of the flame front when a realistic, empirical, non-linear flame height correlation is adopted; the inclusion of burnout in the new model overcomes this restriction and allows the flame spread to proceed indefinitely at a steady-state. The numerical solution algorithm of the model is particularly attractive since it permits heat release data from cone calorimeter tests to be used directly as input. The FORTRAN coding of the model includes routines which perform the necessary I/O sequences automatically; some minor post-processing of the cone calorimeter data is occasionally required prior to running the model but this too has the potential for future automation.