Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

A post-flashover room fire is very hazardous as demonstrated by several big accidents in the recent few years. Many useful correlation equations derived for estimating the heat release rate are believed to be adequate in fire engineering application. However, heat release rates in deriving those equations were mainly based on estimating heat release rate based on mass lost rate of fuel. Flashover in a compartment fire had been studied experimentally on gasoline pool fires with results on heat release rate reported earlier. Transient heat release rates were measured by oxygen consumption calorimetry. The gas temperature curves at different locations in the room were measured instantaneously. Correlation equations on heat release rates with gas temperature reported in the literature will be reviewed and justified with the experimental results. It was observed that heat release rate estimated were lower than the experimental measurement.