Experimental and theoretical study of the ignition of timber by an incandescent lamp

Abstract

In this work, an experimental and theoretical study of the ignition of 20 mm thick paulownia wood exposed to a clear glass envelope incandescent light was performed. The experimental study includes both calibration tests and ignition experiments. Three simple models are established to estimate the incident heat flux in different positions, and the minimum heat flux to achieve ignition, and to correlate the ignition time with distance between the incandescent lamp and the wood sample. Considerable agreement between experimental and theoretical results was obtained in most cases.

Thermocouple Usage in an Irradiance Experiment

“…I read with some interest the article by Wang et al 1 on ignition of timber by a radiation source. There is one aspect of the experimental work that would benefit from clarification.…”

“…It is agreed that errors existed in the measurement of the surface temperature of the timber board in our reported study. 1 During the experiments, the tip of the thermocouple (TC1) was placed on the sample surface and not immersed in the timber board sample, as illustrated in Figure 1. The thermocouple wire was affixed to the board.…”

“…Let T denote the temperature of the thermocouple tip, T s the sample surface temperature, S the area that the thermocouple is in contact with the timber board and q the radiant heat flux transmitted by the lamp, which was deemed as approximately uniform for simplicity. 1 Based on an approximate heat transfer analysis as presented in Appendix 1, the temperature measurement error can be estimated from…”