Citation

Merrill Galloway F, Hirschler MM. Fire Safety J. 1992; 19(1): 73-101.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1992, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

An existing model for hydrogen chloride (HCl) decay in fire atmospheres has been used to predict HCl concentrations in a series of full-scale room-corridor fires. The experimental layout involves a burn room (of standard size, described later), with a single door, leading into a 19 m (62 ft 4 in) long corridor. The end of the corridor leads into the atmosphere, without a doorway. The fuel considered is a set of rigid poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) sheets (c. 500 g) burning under the influence of a series of heat sources of varying intensity.The HCl decay model used is a zone model, designed for use with a modification of the NIST fire hazard model FAST (version 18.3), and it has been used in the past for predicting HCl decay in several other small-scale and full-scale tests.The scenario is one that is not conducive to high levels of HCl decay, because of the lack of two features, normally present in any fires. They are: (1) a 'target' room along the corridor, for mass flow exchanges with the corridor, and (2) a doorway or other flow constriction at the end of the corridor. Both of these deficiencies in the experimental set-up result in much larger smoke flow rates leading to unrealistically low HCl residence times in the corridor.The HCl decay model results were compared with results of six actual tests carried out and with those of the same zone model but without any HCl decay component. The HCl decay model was a much better predictor of the experimental results than the model without decay.