Experimental investigation of effects of variation in heating rate, temperature and heat flux on fire properties of a non-charring polymer

During fire, charring and non-charring polymers undergo reactions in the solid phase (pyrolysis) and in the gas phase (combustion). These reactions can be modelled using computational fluid dynamics-based fire modelling for the prediction of fire growth and spread. Given that many fire properties va...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of thermal analysis and calorimetry 2019-07, Vol.137 (2), p.447-459
Main Authors: Abu-Bakar, Ariza S., Cran, Marlene J., Moinuddin, Khalid A. M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis
Analytical Chemistry
Charring
Chemistry
Chemistry and Materials Science
Combustion
Computational fluid dynamics
Computer simulation
Fluid dynamics
Heat
Heat flux
Heat of reaction
Heat transmission
Heating rate
Incident radiation
Inorganic Chemistry
Measurement Science and Instrumentation
Methyl methacrylate
Physical Chemistry
Polymer Sciences
Polymers
Polymethyl methacrylate
Properties (attributes)
Pyrolysis
Solid phases
Thermal conductivity
Vapor phases
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:During fire, charring and non-charring polymers undergo reactions in the solid phase (pyrolysis) and in the gas phase (combustion). These reactions can be modelled using computational fluid dynamics-based fire modelling for the prediction of fire growth and spread. Given that many fire properties vary with temperature including heating rate and radiation flux, improvements in fire simulations can be made by accounting for these variations. This study characterizes the fire properties of the non-charring synthetic polymer poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) for coupled pyrolysis and combustion simulation. Under pyrolysis, the heat of reaction of PMMA varies with heating rate due the change in residence time facilitating volatilization at any given temperature, particularly at higher heating rates. As a result, the volatiles are formed when the sample has reached higher temperature and therefore more heat flow is needed to assist this process at higher heating rates. Similarly, combustion parameters are also found to vary with the incident radiation flux; however, the variation is relatively minimal. In this study, thermal conductivity and specific heat capacity did not vary with temperature for PMMA.
ISSN:1388-6150
1588-2926
DOI:10.1007/s10973-018-7941-0