Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

Even though considerable work has been performed regarding gas temperatures and burning rates in enclosures [1, 2], little information is available for the heat fluxes and their distributions on the walls of an enclosure. These heat fluxes are a necessary input for determining the thermal response of the wall materials and especially glazing. This work develops a mapping of these heat fluxes and generalized scaling relations between the heat flux, the gas temperatures, and mass loss rates with the size of the opening, the size of the fire and the size of the enclosure. The heat fluxes on the wall were deduced from the temperature in several steel plates (25.4 mm x 25.4mm x 3mm thick) and the temperature in the insulation surrounding the steel plates. The enclosure was 1/3 linear scale of the ISO room corner test having six openings and three square- pans of variable size burning IMS (Industrial Methylated Spirits) at the corner and in the center of the enclosure. Further work is planned and under progress to burn methanol and toluene in order to evaluate the effects of sootiness of the fuel on the heat fluxes.