Controlled atmosphere bench-scale calorimetry revisited

Sylvain Brohez (1) , C. Fourneau (1) , Guy Marlair (2) , Hervé Breulet (3)

1 Department of Chemical Engineering
2 INERIS - Institut National de l'Environnement Industriel et des Risques
3 Institut scientifique de service public

The standard Cone Calorimeter has been designed with an "open configuration", allowing for testing of specimens through use of freely driven room air for combustion. For testing specimens in oxygen depleted atmospheres or in fuel rich combustion a modified apparatus working under controlled atmosphere can be used. To our Knowledge there is very few publications describing the use of such modified cone calorimeters and providing data regarding the effect of ventilation on the fire properties. In the open literature it was reported end of the 1990's that substantial burning can occurred outside the test chamber when such a device is used, the amount of oxygen available to combustion exceeding the amount that was fed to the combustion chamber. In such a case (leading to post-buming outside the test chamber), it has been proposed to correct the experimental data by replacing the oxygen mass feeding rate by the actual rate of oxygen consumption. This paper analyses the proposed correction, and suggests that this might not be fully satisfactory by comparison to data obtained in another bench scale calorimeter with controlled atmosphere. The capacity of a Cone Calorimeter fitted with a controlled atmosphere device will be more in depth investigated in a new research project starting in 2007.

Keywords: CONE CALORIMETRY; CONTROLLED ATMOSPHERE

Domains: Engineering Sciences [physics]

Sylvain Brohez, C. Fourneau, Guy Marlair, Hervé Breulet. Controlled atmosphere bench-scale calorimetry revisited. 11. International Interflam Conference, Sep 2007, Londres, United Kingdom. pp.1515-1520. ⟨ineris-00976193⟩