Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

In order to study the movement of smoke in buildings it was necessary to examine the basic parameters and devise a technique which would be as realistic as possible and which would be reproducible. Smoke is one of those phenomena which is not easy to define and certainly under conditions of actual fires is as variable as the fires themselves. It was essential for experimental work that smoke produced should be as consistent as possible and its presence easily detected and measured. A search was made of the literature on the subject to examine the techniques used by other investigators and to see if suitable measuring devices were commercially available. It was visualized at the outset that it would be preferable on grounds of convenience, economics and speed to produce smoke by means other than actual fires. It was also considered desirable that it should be measured remotely and its effect related to a single physical phenomenon such as reduction of visibility. This note is divided into sections dealing with the following aspects: 1. Smoke generation for experimental purposes 2. Quantitative measurement of smoke 3. Effect of smoke on visibility