THE TEMPERATURE AND DURATION OF FIRES: PART I: SOME EXPERIMENTS WITH MODELS WITH RESTRICTED VENTILATION
Simms, D.L., Hird, D. and Wraight, H.G., 1960. THE TEMPERATURE AND DURATION OF FIRES: PART I: SOME EXPERIMENTS WITH MODELS WITH RESTRICTED VENTILATION. Fire Research Notes412
Models have been used to measure both the temperatures reached and the
duration of fires in compartments of different sizes with various fire loads and
amounts of ventilation.
The course of the fire may be divided into three comparatively well-defined
periods. An initial period where the fire spreads after ignition to involve the
entire compartment, a period of steady development, and a period of decay these
last two both increasing in duration with increasing fire load and decreasing
ventilation.
The estimated mean rate of burning in the development period was independent
of fire load and depended only on the quantity of air entering the compartment;
in general, the maximum temperatures reached increased with this induced air flow
and were largely independent of fire load.
