A Phenomenological Study on the Flame Spread of Air Conditioner Indoor unit by Fire Tests

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to check the fire origin and cause of the fire by observing the shape of the flame propagation in air-conditioner indoor unit through the fire tests. We supposed that the flame is spread from the surroundings to the top of the air-conditioner and ignited on top of the air-conditioner with n-heptane. And then repeated this experiment twice under the same conditions. After the ignition, refrigerant filled in air-conditioner and lubricating oil exploded with large explosion and flame having high temperature and pressure belched out rapidly due to bursting refrigerant pipe linked air-conditioner between 734 seconds and 559 seconds. After result of checking the combustion residue we found that almost all of that was lost except a part of the evaporator, motor and metal. The position of short-circuit traces of wiring for the air-conditioner ignited itself is similar to that of fire damage by external flame. Therefore, we verified that it is not certain to determine the ignition cause and point by only the shape of the combustion residues.