Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

Passenger train fires are rare, but can lead to serious consequences. During passenger train fire, the smoke is the main cause of deaths because of the poison of the material emission. The small-scale experiments of sleeping carriage fire safety have been performed to investigate the smoke flowing in running passenger train. The smoke is recorded simultaneously from the fire starting to extinguish with digital video camera. The speed field of the running train is simulated in combustion wind tunnel of the State Key Lab of Fire Science, University of Science and Technology of China. Sixteen Nickel-chrome NiSi armored thermocouples are arranged to measure temperature gradient in horizontal and vertical directions in the model carriage. The temperature data are obtained by means of real time signal process system consisting of a PC, A/D board, and multi-channel data gathering board. A stainless bowl with the diameter of 10 cm and the height of 7cm, or a cylinder vessel with the diameter of 12 cm, is placed in the front or the middle of the model carriage as the combustion vessel. The fire smoking properties and the variation of the temperature field in the sleeping carriage are analyzed. The passenger train fire safety is also presented. It provides the preliminary study for improving the passenger train fire safety and carrying out full-scale experiment in China.