Citation

Gou F, Jiang L, Xiao H, Li M, Sun J. Fire Mater. 2022; 46(5): 780-788.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1002/fam.3024

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

To investigate the combustion characteristics of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), a series of experiments of PMMA combustion with different sample shapes and sizes in still air are performed. A digital video camera and an electronic balance are used to record the combustion process and variation of mass, particularly. The effects of equivalent diameter on combustion are discussed and analyzed, respectively, to well adapt in dimensionless analysis methods. Flame pulsation during the stable burning stage is studied by similarity theory and dimensionless analysis methods. Experimental and theoretical results show that correlations between flame pulsation and equivalent diameters in PMMA burning are similar to that of pool fires, that is, flame pulsation frequency is inversely related to the square root of equivalent diameter. In addition, the corresponding theoretical analysis of heat and mass transfer processes is studied. Convection and radiation heat transfer were calculated and modeled for each shape and sample size. Based on the heat transfer calculation results, sample mass loss rate for each sample size was predicted, and it is in good agreement with the experimental result. Finally, a dimensionless heat release rate for different sample size was scaled with dimensionless flame height.

Language: en

Keywords

burning rate; flame height; flame pulsation frequency; laminar combustion