Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

Heat absorption rates by water were determined for rack-storage, corrugated carton fires in which fire suppression was achieved. The carton was made of corrugated double triwall cardboard with metal liner. In these tests, water was applied uniformly on top of the fuel array when fire grew to selected fire sizes, and the water fluxes per unit exposed fuel surface area were much greater than the critical flux required for fire suppression The test results indicate that, for identical fuel arrays after comparable periods of fire exposure, the heat absorption rate by water at a fire size tends to remain constant for different water fluxes. However, by applying the same water flux on identical fuel arrays, the heat absorption rate at a fire size becomes higher for a fuel array having a much longer period of fire exposure. For each storage height, the fraction of fire's total heat release rate absorbed by water can be correlated with the ratio of total heat release rate versus the total heat release rate at the time when water application is initiated.