Sensitivity and uncertainty analyses for ignition of fiber‐reinforced polymer panels

Abstract

Summary The ignition characteristics of combustible solids are affected by many factors such as material properties, external heating source, and surrounding environmental conditions. In practice, these factors can vary significantly from one application to another. Thus, it is important to evaluate the sensitivity and uncertainty aspects of the effect of these factors on ignition. This study attempts to achieve this goal through sensitivity and uncertainty analyses on the piloted ignition of fiber‐reinforced polymer (FRP) composite panels. A Monte Carlo simulation using the Latin hypercube sampling method was employed to conduct sensitivity and uncertainty analyses. An integral model combining a general thermal thickness model with a heating rate‐related ignition temperature criterion was used as the ignition prediction model. Time‐to‐ignition was evaluated as the output parameter against the variations of input parameters such as material properties, external heating source, and surrounding environmental conditions. In addition, to identifying important sensitivity factors and uncertainty ranges of piloted ignition, a critical thermal thickness was found for the composite panels. These findings can serve as guides for the fire safety design of FRP composite materials for various applications. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Methodology for material property determination

“…Instead of only studying temperature, Chaos also performed the sensitivity analyses of mass loss rate (MLR) to material properties. Other studies on the sensitivity of the pyrolysis model regarding different parameters had been conducted by researchers in the past as well . In this study, sensitivity analyses were performed on both the surface temperature and the MLR for a charring material to quantify the sensitive of the input properties.…”

RETRACTED: A pure thermal model to evaluate heat-affected zone when milling E-glass fiber-reinforced polyester composites

“…The thermomechanical behavior owing to tool-material contact is widely considered responsible for the most physical phenomena generated throughout the machining process. [5][6][7][8] In absolute terms, the thermal conductivity has main role in controlling temperature evolution within the composite structures during machining. For predicting the thermal conductivity of unidirectional FRP, the knowledge of fiber and matrix properties, volume fractions, interphase properties, and fiber architecture are necessary.…”