Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

The physical nature of flammability limits was considered using some peculiarities of chemical kinetics of combustion of gaseous organic substances in air. New regularities in lower flammability limits and compositions of mixtures near peak points of flammability curves are revealed. These regularities are the following. Firstly, adiabatic temperatures TadCO at combustion of gaseous mixtures up to CO and H2O for fuel-air mixtures at lower flammability limits and fuel-air-diluent mixtures at peak points of flammability curves are in rather narrow ranges. Secondly, compositions of ternary fuel-air-diluent gaseous mixtures are close to stoichiometry in relation to combustion up to CO and H2O. These regularities are important for the creation of new methods for an analytical evaluation of flammability limits of organic substances in air.