32
NATIONAL BUREAU f9f‘%fwtnat!0!T . pofposes.^n^ « fwt te^be^efere^^^ ift-any ptibHcatron. OF STANDARDS REPORT STUDY ON SMOKE AND GASES GENERATED FROM FIRES AND FIELD FIRE EXPERIMENTS FOR INTERIOR FINISH MATERIALS U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS

te^be^efere^^^ pofposes.^n^ NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS … · 2016. 12. 12. · NATIONALBUREAUOFSTANDARDSREPORT NBSPROJECT 4212229 February1 1971 NBSREPORT 10534 STUDYONSMOKEANDGASESGENERATEDFROMFIRES

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  • NATIONAL BUREAU

    f9f‘%fwtnat!0!T .

    pofposes.^n^ « fwt te^be^efere^^^

    ift-any ptibHcatron.

    OF STANDARDS REPORT

    STUDY ON SMOKE AND GASES GENERATED FROM FIRES

    AND

    FIELD FIRE EXPERIMENTS FOR INTERIOR FINISH MATERIALS

    U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

    NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS

  • NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS

    The National Bureau of Standards ‘ was established by an act of Congress March 3, 1901 . Today,

    in addition to serving as the Nation’s central measurement laboratory, the Bureau is a principal

    focal point in the Federal Government for assuring maximum application of the physical andengineering sciences to the advancement of technology in industry and commerce. To this end

    the Bureau conducts research and provides central national services in four broad program

    areas. These are: (1) basic measurements and standards, (2) materials measurements and

    standards, (3) technological measurements and standards, and (41 transfer of technology.

    The Bureau comprises the Institute for Basic Standards, the Institute for Materials Research, the

    Institute for Applied Technology, the Center for Radiation Research, the Center for Computer

    Sciences and Technology, and the Office for Information Programs.

    THE INSTITUTE FOR BASIC STANDARDS provides the central basis within the UnitedStates of a complete and consistent system of physical measurement; coordinates that system with

    measurement systems of other nations; and furnishes essential services leading to accurate and

    uniform physical measurements throughout the Nation’s scientific community, industry, and com-

    merce. The Institute consists of an Office of Measurement Services and the following technical

    divisions:

    Applied Mathematics-—Electricity—Metrology—Mechanics—Heat—Atomic and Molec-ular Physics—Radio Physics-—Radio Engineering-—Time and Frequency-—Astro-physics -—Cryogenics.

    -

    THE INSTITUTE FOR MATERIALS RESEARCH conducts materials research leading to im-proved methods of measurement standards, and data on the properties of well-characterized

    materials needed by industry, commerce, educational institutions, and Government; develops,

    produces, and distributes standard reference materials; relates the physical and chemical prop-

    erties of materials to their behavior and their interaction with their environments; and provides

    advisory and research services to other Government agencies. The Institute consists of an Office

    of Standard Reference Materials and the following divisions:

    Analytical Chemistry—Polymers—Metallurgy—Inorganic Materials—Physical Chemistry.THE INSTITUTE FOR APPLIED TECHNOLOGY provides technical services to promotethe use of available technology and to facilitate technological innovation in industry and Gov-

    ernment; cooperates with public and private organizations in the development of technological

    standards, and test methodologies; and provides advisory and research services for Federal, state,

    and local government agencies. The Institute consists of the following technical divisions and

    offices:

    Engineering Standards—Weights and Measures— Invention and Innovation — VehicleSystems Research—Product Evaluation—Building Research—Instrument Shops—Meas-urement Engineering—Electronic Technology—Technical Analysis,

    THE CENTER FOR RADIATION RESEARCH engages in research, measurement, and ap-plication of radiation to the solution of Bureau mission problems and the problems of other agen-

    cies and institutions. The Center consists of the following divisions:

    Reactor Radiation—Linac Radiation—Nuclear Radiation—Applied Radiation.THE CENTER FOR COMPUTER SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY conducts research andprovides technical services designed to aid Government agencies in the selection, acquisition,

    and effective use of automatic data processing equipment; and serves as the principal focus

    for the development of Federal standards for automatic data processing equipment, techniques,

    and computer languages. The Center consists of the following offices and divisions:

    Information Processing Standards—Computer Information — Computer Services— Sys-tems Development—Information Processing Technology.

    THE OFFICE FOR INFORMATION PROGRAMS promotes optimum dissemination andaccessibility of scientific information generated within NBS and other agencies of the Federalgovernment; promotes the development of the National Standard Reference Data System and a

    system of information analysis centers dealing with the broader aspects of the National Measure-

    ment System, and provides appropriate services to ensure that the NBS staff has optimum ac-cessibility to the scientific information of the world. The Office consists of the followingorganizational units:

    Office of Standard Reference Data—Clearinghouse for Federal Scientific and TechnicalInformation '—-Office of Technical Information and Publications—Library—Office ofPublic Information—Office of International Relations.

    ' Headquarters and Laboratories at Gaithersburg. Maryland, unless otherwise noted; mailing address Washington, D.C. 20234.- Located at Boulder, Colorado 80302.

    Located at 5285 Port Royal Road, Springfield, Virginia 22161.

  • NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS REPORT

    NBS PROJECT

    4212229 F ebruary 1 , 1971

    NBS REPORT

    10 534

    STUDY ON SMOKE AND GASES GENERATED FROM FIRES

    by F. Saito and T. Wakamatsu

    FIELD FIRE EXPERIMENTS FOR INTERIOR FINISH MATERIALS

    by F. Saito

    Building Research Institute, Tokyo

    Translation

    by

    J. B. Fang

    Fire Research Section

    Building Research Division, NBS0 f

    Selected Portions of Articles Published

    1 n

    Industrial Materials Vol. 16, No. 13

    and

    Special Report of Building Research Institute o f Japan

    IMPORTANT NOTICE

    NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANfor use within the Government. Be

    and review. For this reason, the pi

    whole or in part, is not authorize!

    Bureau of Standards, Washington, I

    the Report has been specifically pre

    Approved for public release by the

    director of the National Institute of

    Standards and Technology (NIST)

    on October 9, 2015

    accounting documents intended

    ejected to additional evaluation

    iting of this Report, either in

    iffice of the Director, National

    le Government agency for which

    es for its own use.

    U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

    NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS

  • STUDY ON SMOKE AND GASES GENERATED FROM FIRESby

    F. Saito and T. Wakamatsu

    and

    FIELD FIRE EXPERIMENTS FOR INTERIOR FINISH MATERIALSby

    F. Saito

    Translation byJ. B. Fang

    PREFACE

    This report is a translation of papers prepared by F. Saitoand T. Wakamatsu describing research performed at the BuildingResearch Institute of Japan.

    The translation has been prepared to disseminate usefulinformation to interested fire research personnel on a need-to-know basis and is not original work generated at theBuilding Research Division.

    We express our appreciation to the authors for providing theiroriginal manuscript for translation and for their assistancein making this information available.

  • 1

    A

    \

    'j

    i

    I

    V

  • STUDY ON SMOKE AND GASES GENERATED FROM FIRES

    Investigation of the Effect of Ventilation Openingsin a Compartment on Smoke Generation and Smoke Movement

    1.1 OPENING CONDITIONS OF FIRE ROOM AND SMOKE GENERATION

    by

    F„ Saito

    In spite of using the same internal linings, the smoke generation from com-partment fires will be different if opening conditions are not the same.Since the temperature and the burning rate in a fire room depend upon ven-tilation conditions, the rate of smoke generation should be considered alongwith the course of fire growth. Suppose a fire breaks out and ignites thewall materials first and then the ceiling to reach flashover. In this case,the rate of smoke production from room fires at time t can be expressed interms of internal lining areas of wall materials, A^

    ,A^, etc., at the cor-

    responding temperatures of T^, T^, etc., as

    dc _^^1 A + A + etc. (1)

    dt " dt ^ dt

    Most materials have such smoke characteristics that the maximum smoke gen-eration occurs at about 400 to 500°C. A small amount of smoke is producedat the initial stage of room fires since at such low room temperatures theburning area and the burning rate are small in spite of high rate of smoke -ygeneration per unit area. However, the amount of smoke generation increasesrapidly at or after flashover because the area of active burning enlargesto cover the whole fire room through a steep rise in the room temperature.Consequently, the former commonly can be ignored campared to the latter.

    In order to measure the quantity of smoke discharged from the fire room, itrequires to determine the flow rate of hot gases leaving the opening and the ^history of smoke concentration.

    Smoke generation from a fire room as described before has a close relationwith flashover. A model box as shown in Figure 1 was used to simplify thegeometry of a compartment and the smoke was gathered and measured at a hoodhanging over the box.

    1

  • K1 1 gt

    l^..xl\ V . o *•' C P

    The rate of smoke generation is given by

    dc

    dtC Vs

    ( 2 )

    The total amount of smoke production thus can be expressed as

    C C Avdts

    ( 3 )

    where C is the light attenuation coefficient of smoke in m,A is the

    cross-sectional area of the hood in m,

    v is the mean velocity of hot gasesin M/sec„

    The volume of the discharged gases in which the smoke particles are dis-persed is considered here regardless of the concentration of smoke particles,and this volume is dependent on chemical composition of the material involved^

    If W Kg of wood-like material is burned in O' percent of excess air, thevolume of smoke produced has the following form:

    V = (0.72 + 3 o 97 a) W ( 4 )

    and the rate of smoke generation after flashover can be written in termsof the burning rate R as

    ^ = (0.72 + 3o97 a) R (5)dt

    2

  • 1. Experimental

    The amount of smoke produced from compartment fires depends upon the amountof fire load, types of interior finish materials, size of the compartment(available internal lining area) and the rate of burning (the ventilationconditions)

    .

    According to the studies made by Kawagoe and Sekine, and Thomas, an approx-imate value for the burning rate of a fully developed fire can be obtainedfrom the area A (m^) and the height H (m) of a ventilation opening throughthe equation: R= 5„5 A/h„ In similar way, the present model experiment wasconstructed to determine the rate of burning, the smoke generating coefficientand the rate of smoke generation for various geometries of the openings „ Threedifferent sizes of model boxes oflmx2mxlm (H) (large scale), 0.5 m x1.0 X 0.5 m (H) (medium scale) and 0.5 m x 0.5 m x 1.0 m (small scale model)were used, and the interior finish materials employed mainly were plywood inthe present study.

    (a) Fire Source

    There is a certain relation among flashover, e.g. the flashover time (FOT),size of the fire source and the ratio of the combustible lining area (As) tothe surface area of wood crib exposed to air (A^) . (See Table 1) Lattice-type wood cribs which were constructed from spruce sticks of 2 cm x 2 cm incross-section by either 25 cm (large scale) or 12 cm (small scale) in length,and piled up 5 layers (total 30 pieces) for large scale or 4 layers (total 12pieces) for small scale were used as fire sources. The cribs were ignitedfrom the bottom row by a stick dipped in alcohol.

    1. 5 i AOf.

    As{ m ) As / Ac

    ^ ^ 49 ~ 6.7 1 0.6 ~ 20.4

    )

    imoi-i- s

  • (b) Ventilation Opening

    Various opening ratios which is defined as the ratio of the opening areato total area of the front wall, can be obtained by varying the width of theopening with a constant height. The opening ratio in the present studyrespectively were 1/3, l/'^, and 1/8 for large scale and 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, and1/16 for small scale models. (See Table 2)

    2o Discussion of Experimental Results

    The rate of smoke generation from a material depends on the product of thesmoke generating coefficient and the burning rate. F or a given openingcondition, the rate of smoke production similar to the average temperaturein a fire room can be expected to reach a certain value at flashover. How-ever, from general observation, the internal materials were not burned witha constant rate in horizontal direction into their thickness, but part ofthem fell out and burned locally. These phenomena present some difficultiesin determining the correct value among the measured ones.

    (i) Burning rate

    Figures 2 and 3 show typical weight loss curves. As indicated in the figuresthese curves deviate noticeably from the linearity after flashover becauseof intermittent falling out of the internal lining materials. From thefigures, the rate of burning was determined from the slope between two pointsin which the burning was at a steady state. The rate of burning is decreasedwith decreasing the opening ratio since the amount of air inflow is depressedYet, this burning rate is not further increased and shows almost constantwhen the opening ratio exceeds a certain region. Figure 4 indicates suchrelations. The dash lines in Figure 4 are the results reported by D. Grosson the burning velocity of cribs made from cellulose-base fiberboards.Under the same opening condition, the present work shows higher rate ofburningo This is attributed to the differences in materials (plywood andfiberboard), and in stick geometry.

    4

  • ajna (») Time

    m 2 Tg !,t ()S i!SFifcufit all;C I fc HT (. tii C

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    A flTy- AS ("-'/I)The smoke generating coefficient is large for small opening and decreaseswith an increase in the opening ratio„ Figure 6 presents a relationshipbetween the room temperature and the smoke generating coefficiento Asshown in Figure 7, at the value of A/H/A smaller than about 0o04, thesmoke generating coefficient increases rapidly because of the smolderingburning caused by the shortage of oxygeuo

    (iii) Rate of Smoke Generation

    The rate of smoke production is determined by the product of burning rateand the smoke generating coefficient of the material, and as discussedbefore the opening condition is then an important controlling factor^Figures 4 and 7 indicate a relation that the smoke generating coefficientis inversely proportional to the rate of burning.

    As shown in Figure 8, the rate of smoke generation decreases with an increasein the ventilation opening and tends to converge to a certain value„ In thesame figure, there is an estimated value which is calculated from the resultsof field experiment along with the consideration of friction effect due to a30 m long passage between fire room and air entrance.

    HI 8 )FltiVRf a. ffrtrt Ctr s/nCAt

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    7

  • (iv) Flashover Time and Fire Source

    Flashover starts when the concentration of combustible gases in the fireroom gets into a certain rangeo Consequently, the time taken from ignitionup to flashover depends upon the opening condition and size of the firesource. For a given opening condition, flashover is determined by the rateof heating acting on the materials (size of fire source) „ Figure 9 showsa plot flashover time against A /A for plywood. For the case of cribsexperiment, it requires the correction for the time taken to active burningof the fire source. An empirical equation for plywood at the opening ratioof 1/4 is obtained as follows:

    AF.O.T. = [2.6 + 0.3 (^)] -D

    c

    Here D is the time taken to develop into a certain degree of fire.

    8

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    1/3 0.1 10 0 0.82 - - - 865 7' 30" 198 -tk '

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    TN)fAW

  • 1„2 EXPERIMENTS ON SMOKE MOVEMENT IN BUILDINGS

    by

    To Wakamatsu

    1 o Study Objectives

    The present experiinent aims to determine the minimum amount of required airsupply to prevent smoke entering the stair room for various opening condi-tions, and using the experimental results to compare with theoretical cal-culation (l)o

    2 . Experimental Installations

    Air supply and smoke discharge passages, the stair rooms and the living roomswere installed on first to fifth floor of a five-story buildingo The fireroom (the living room on the third floor served as the fire room in the

    ^present experiment) and air conditioning unit (whose supply capacity of 5 m /sec and conditioning capability ranging from -10°C to 20°C with respect tothe outside air) were set up on the first floor and the instrument room onthe second floor., The air supply passage was connected to a blower through^a duct, and a natural draft smoke opening and a suction fan (capacity 2,5m /sec) were installed at the roof portion of the smoke discharge passage. Inorder to make the position and the area of the openings adjustable, twoventilation openings which connected the living room to supply and dischargepassages were divided into six portions in vertical direction, and installedwith six pieces of 1 m wide x 40 cm high door.

    10

  • 3 „ Experimental Procedure

    Alcohol contained in a pan with a cross-sectional area of 0.35 m was burnedin the living room on the third floor and smoke was produced through a smokegenerating cylinder. The tests were performed for 14 opening conditions inwhich doors Dl, D2, and D3 on the first floor and door DF and window W1 ofthe fire room were always opened, and door DR of the stair room and windowW2 of the fire room were either shut or opened. The size of each opening ispresented in Table 1.

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    m-nno

    The amount of air supply was determined by hot wire anemometers placed at thecenter of each air entrance. In this case, the discharge coefficient foreach opening was assumed to be 0„85.

    The^experiment was started by running the blower at full capacity of about5 m /sec, and setting fire to produce smoke in the fire room. In this stage,most smoke would discharge out from the windows of the fire room. The mimimumamount of required air supply to the stair room was obtained by gradual re-duction of air supply until the smoke started to move into the stair room.Repeated tests were made in duplicate or triplicate for each opening conditionand a total of 31 runs was performed.

    4 . Experimental Results and Observations (Comparison with the CalculatedValues )

    Table 2 illustrates the average temperatures of air in the outdoor, thestair room and the fire room, the direction and the speed of the outside airmeasured at the instrument room, and the predicted and experimental valuesfor minimum amount of required air supply. The predicted values were calcu-lated based on the equations derived in Reference 1 along with the data ob-tained from the present experiment. In general, the predicted values arein reasonably good agreement with the experimental values.

    References

    [ l] Wakamatsu, T., "Calculation of Smoke Movement in Building," BRIResearch Paper No. 34, (1968)

    »

    11

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    13

  • FIELD FIRE EXPERIMENTS FOR INTERIORFINISH MATERIALS

    by

    Fo Saito

    From "Industrial Materials", Vol. 16, No» 13, pp 104-112

    Introduction

    In spite of a building constructed entirely from non-combustible materials,it still possesses a high degree of the potential of fire hazard because ofthe combustibilities of furniture and goods within the building. Severalfire experiments were sponsored by the Building Research Institute in whichthe following four experiments were related to interior finish materials.

    Experimental Procedure

    The accuracy and the repeatability of the experiments on field fires aredecreased with an increase in size of the building. However, the experi-mental procedure and the ignition method were carried out in the same mannerfor each run.

    1

    .

    Ignition Method

    Wood cribs, which were constructed of 12 pieces of 2 cm x 2 cm x 60 cmspruce sticks per layer, were placed at the corner of a compartment and wereignited by inserting an alcohol soaked stick (1 cm x 1 cm x 60 cm) at thebottom layer„ Wood cribs which were piled up to 10 layers and locatednear the center of the room were used as the fire source to simulate officefires in the fire experiments made in May 1967, and cribs piled up to 31layers were employed for the experiments in April 1968.

    2

    .

    Temperature Measurements

    Temperature measurement was made with CA thermocouples (Class 0.65) connectedto the electronic type self-balancing temperature recorders.

    3

    .

    Smoke Concentration

    The attenuation coefficient is used in the present experiment for theindication of smoke density. The conventional way to measure the smokeconcentration is direct measurement of the intensity of light attenuated

    by the smoke between the light source and the receiver, but this method has

    limitations due to the temperature compensation of the cell and the effectof flame present in the smoke in some cases.

    14

  • A temperature compensation type sucking smoke meter was employed formeasuring smoke concentration,, (See sketch)

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  • 1 . Combustibility of Internal Lining Material

    As shown in Table 1, the experiments were carried out under such conditionsthat with the exception of one room, the remaining three rooms were linedwith the same sort of materials for walls and ceilings,,

    In this case, the materials used have the following relation with theclassification of building materials designated by the regulation:

    Partially non-combustible material: gypsum boardHardly combustible material: treated plywoodCombustible material: plywood

    The material wMch is classified above the hardly combustible material isconsidered as a fire resistant material. Figure 1 shows that the differencein the time taken to flashover between plywood and treated plywood was about1„5 minutes. However, this deviation in flashover time is dependent uponthe size of fire source and the compartment size.

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    The interior finish material used in the third room was a partially non-combustible material and only burned the paper coated on the surface ofgypsum board located around the fire source. The walls of the first roomwere internally finished respectively with non-combustible materials andJapanese cedar, and the fire source was located in the vicinity of cabinetswithin the compartment

    »

    The rate of smoke generation at flashover and the flashover time for severalinterior finish materials used in model and field experiments are summarizedin Table 2. The flashover time as described before is dependent upon theratio of the size of fire source (the rate of heat release) and the exposedsurface area inside the compartment and the comparison is not possible as theratio is not fixed„ However, the rate of smoke generation which depends onthe smoke generating coefficient, the rate of thermal decomposition and thetemperature can be used for comparison purpose^

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  • 2 . For the Case of Combustible Loads Present in the Compartment

    Flashover is also dependent upon the amount of combustible loads present inthe compartmento Especially for the case of dwellings, a large amount ofvarious shapes of combustible materials in general scatters inside thecompartmento The progress of fire is controlled by its intensity when thefire spreads over the surfaces of combustible loads such as furnitures. Thus,the time taken to flashover is dependent on the quantity of combustible loadand types of construction materials usedo The combustibilities of the mater-ials employed greatly affect flashover and as shown in Figures 2 and 3, thedegree of deflection for various building materials exposed to fires isnoticeably differento

    The experiments conducted to simulate office fires in May 1967 aimed to studythe relation between smoke generation and internal lining materials. Thesize of the office used in these experiments was about 10 m and the fireswere started by burning wood cribs placed near to a desk and a chair. Aremarkable difference in gas composition and concentration of the smokedischarged from the openings of the building was observed as shown in Figures4 to 6 for using various interior finish materials in spite of insignificantdifference in their flashover times (see Figure 7)o

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  • Fire Experiments and Internal Lining Materials

    From the experiments performed, it can be concluded that free burning firesand combustibility of the material have the following relations:

    1 „ No Combustible Materials in the Fire Room

    The flashover time for the case of internal lining materials only existingin the fire room depends upon the combustibility of the material involved,and the ratio of the burning rate of fire source to the exposed surface areaof the interior finish materials. According to the classification of fireresistant materials, the material classified above as the partially non-combustible material shows almost no flashover, and a hardly combustiblematerial simply prolongs the flashover time compared with the combustiblematerial

    .

    In the 1968 experiments, the smoke was discharged to the corridor from oneside of the compartment, and these discharge rates and diffusion rates insidethe building were determined. Figures 8 to 1? show details of the experimentsand the rate of smoke generation for various kinds of materials. In thesecond experiment a PVC flexible board, the total amount of smoke producedtended to be flat when the fire became intensive as shown in Figure 17. Plywoodand treated plywood used in No.'s 1 and 4 experiments were completely burnedout within 4 to 5 minutes after flashover.

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  • 2 . A Large Amount of Combustible Loads in the Fire Room

    The fire experiments in 1965 were conducted on dwellings and the fire wasinitiated in front of the cabinetSo In 1967, the experiments were directedtowards the study of office fires and the fire started at the side of a deskoUnder both conditions, the time taken to flashover was independent of theposition of initiation of the fire and the properties of the materials usedsince the combustible materials were completely burned out beforehand^ Con-sequently, the internal lining materials which are non-combustible can beexpected to have the same results.

    The interior finish materials which act as fuels in fires have a tremendouseffect on the deflection of the building components. In the present experimentfire was initiated in the neighborhood of the cabinet where the combustibilitiesof the materials were difficult to compare. If the fires start at the oppositecorner where the comparison of material characteristics is possible, a phenomenaof no combustible loads in the fire room can be expected to be present. It canbe concluded that the experiments on office fires in 1967 are similar to thiscase

    .

    23

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