In order to reduce the uncertainty and risk in the design of spacecraft fire safety systems, a new experimental rig that allows the study of concomitant flames spreading over the coating of parallel cylindrical wires in an air flow parallel to the wires in microgravity has been developed. The parabolic flight experiments were conducted at small length-and timescales, i.e. typically over 10 cm long samples for up to 20 seconds. For the first time, the influence of neighboring spread on the mass burning rate was assessed in microgravity. The observations are contrasted with the influence characterized in normal gravity. The experimental results are expected to deliver meaningful guidelines for future, planned experiments at a larger scale.Arising from the current results, the issue of the potential interaction among spreading flames also needs to be carefully investigated as this interaction plays a major role in realistic fire scenarios, and therefore on the design of the strategies that would allow the control of such a fire. Once buoyancy has been removed, the characteristic length and time scales of the different modes of heat and mass transfer are modified. For this reason, interaction among spreading flames may be revealed in microgravity, while it would not at normal gravity, or vice versa. Furthermore, the interaction may lead to an enhanced spread rate when mutual preheating dominates or, conversely, a reduced spread rate when oxidizer flow vitiation is predominant.In more general terms, the current study supports both the SAFFIRE and the FLARE projects, which are large projects with international scientific teams. First, material samples will be tested in a series of flight experiments (SAFFIRE 1-3) conducted in Cygnus vehicles after they have undocked from the ISS. These experiments will allow the study of ignition and possible flame spread in real spacecraft conditions, i.e. over real length scale samples within real time scales. Second, concomitant research conducted within the FLARE project is dedicated to the assessment of new standard tests for materials that a spacecraft can be composed of. Finally, these tests aim to define the ambient conditions that will mitigate and potentially prohibit the flame spread in microgravity over the material studied.

Flame spread over wire insulation plays a crucial role in spacecraft fire safety. To quantify the effect of the initial ignition condition on the Limiting Oxygen Concentration (LOC) of spreading flame over wire insulation, opposed flow flame spread experiments with wire insulation were conducted in microgravity (parabolic flights). Both ignition power (32.7 to 71.8 W) and heating time (5-15 s) were varied for an external flow of 100 mm/s. The sample wires were made of Polyethylene-coated Nickel-Chrome (NiCr) and Copper (Cu), respectively, both with inner core diameter of 0.50 mm and insulation thickness of 0.30 mm. A 0.50 mm diameter coiled Kanthal wire wrapped around the sample wire 6 times with 8 mm length was used as the igniter. The experimental results show that the LOC gradually decreases as the ignition power or heating time increases and eventually it reaches a constant value. Also, the effect of ignition condition on LOC was more pronounced for Cu wires than for NiCr wires. The variation range of LOC in the tested ignition condition in microgravity was larger than that of horizontal flame spread in normal gravity. This conclusion can have implication for future experiment in the International Space Station to avoid the wrong LOC value because of the insufficient initial ignition energy and will eventually lead to an improved fire safety in spacecrafts.

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