Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

A simple model for combined pyrolysis and devolatilization of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) is developed and studied. The model parameters are estimated from available literature data, and the resulting predictions are compared with a single thermogravimetric experiment. It is found that the bubble loss model makes a better prediction than a critical carbon number loss model. As expected, the bubble loss model is seen to lose validity when the sample becomes predominantly composed of volatile species.