Title page for ETD etd-121409-192436

Document Type thesis

Author Name Overholt, Kristopher J

Email Address koverholt at gmail.com

URN etd-121409-192436

Title Characterizing the Flammability of Storage Commodities Using an Experimentally Determined B-number

Degree MS

Department Fire Protection Engineering

Advisors
Professor Ali Rangwala, Advisor
Dr. Kathy Notarianni, Department Head
Jonathan Perricone, Committee Member

Keywords
upward flame spread
flame height
commodity classification
B number
warehouse fire
scale modeling

Date of Presentation/Defense 2009-12-02

Availability unrestricted

Abstract
In warehouse storage applications, it is important to classify the burning behavior of commodities and rank them according to material flammability for early fire detection and suppression operations. In this study, the large-scale effects of warehouse fires are decoupled into separate processes of heat and mass transfer. As a first step, two nondimensional parameters are shown to govern the physical phenomena at the large-scale, a mass transfer number, and the soot yield of the fuel which controls the radiation observed in the large-scale. In this study, a methodology is developed to obtain a mass-transfer parameter using mass-loss (burning rate) measurements from bench-scale tests. Two fuels are considered, corrugated cardboard and polystyrene. Corrugated cardboard provides a source of flaming combustion in a warehouse and is usually the first item to ignite and sustain flame spread. Polystyrene is typically used as the most hazardous product in large-scale fire testing. A mixed fuel sample (corrugated cardboard backed by polystyrene) was also tested to assess the feasibility of ranking mixed commodities using the bench-scale test method. The nondimensional mass transfer number was then used to model upward flame propagation on 20-30 foot stacks of Class III commodity consisting of paper cups packed in corrugated cardboard boxes on rack-storage. Good agreement was observed between the model and large-scale experiments during the initial stages of fire growth.

Files
koverholt.pdf

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Document Type	thesis
Author Name	Overholt, Kristopher J
Email Address	koverholt at gmail.com
URN	etd-121409-192436
Title	Characterizing the Flammability of Storage Commodities Using an Experimentally Determined B-number
Degree	MS
Department	Fire Protection Engineering
Advisors	Professor Ali Rangwala, Advisor Dr. Kathy Notarianni, Department Head Jonathan Perricone, Committee Member
Keywords	upward flame spread flame height commodity classification B number warehouse fire scale modeling
Date of Presentation/Defense	2009-12-02
Availability	unrestricted
Abstract In warehouse storage applications, it is important to classify the burning behavior of commodities and rank them according to material flammability for early fire detection and suppression operations. In this study, the large-scale effects of warehouse fires are decoupled into separate processes of heat and mass transfer. As a first step, two nondimensional parameters are shown to govern the physical phenomena at the large-scale, a mass transfer number, and the soot yield of the fuel which controls the radiation observed in the large-scale. In this study, a methodology is developed to obtain a mass-transfer parameter using mass-loss (burning rate) measurements from bench-scale tests. Two fuels are considered, corrugated cardboard and polystyrene. Corrugated cardboard provides a source of flaming combustion in a warehouse and is usually the first item to ignite and sustain flame spread. Polystyrene is typically used as the most hazardous product in large-scale fire testing. A mixed fuel sample (corrugated cardboard backed by polystyrene) was also tested to assess the feasibility of ranking mixed commodities using the bench-scale test method. The nondimensional mass transfer number was then used to model upward flame propagation on 20-30 foot stacks of Class III commodity consisting of paper cups packed in corrugated cardboard boxes on rack-storage. Good agreement was observed between the model and large-scale experiments during the initial stages of fire growth.
Files	koverholt.pdf