Theoretical and experimental study of width effects on horizontal flame spread over extruded and expanded polystyrene foam surfaces

Abstract

In order to explore the mechanisms of horizontal flame spread over thermal insulation foam surfaces, extruded polystyrene and expanded polystyrene foams were selected to carry out a series of experiments with different sample widths ranging from 4 to 16 cm. Temperatures in both the solid phase and the gas phase were measured, with considerable differences being found between extruded polystyrene and expanded polystyrene in their temperature profiles. Extruded polystyrene also showed a distinct pyrolysis stage, while expanded polystyrene showed a lengthy melting stage differences that may be explained from their different thermal properties. The flame spread rates of both materials first decreased and then increased with increasing sample widths. The minimum flame spread rates were at widths of 8 and 10 cm for extruded polystyrene and expanded polystyrene, respectively, resulting from the relative differences between convection and radiation heat flux, which were different for the two foams. Numerical equations were deduced, and the theoretical minimum flame spread rates for extruded polystyrene and expanded polystyrene were found to be 6 and 7.2 cm, respectively. Mass loss rates of both materials showed polynomial functions with different sample widths, while the mass loss rate of expanded polystyrene behaved with more fluctuations and a more gradual change rate. The pool length for extruded polystyrene was longer than for expanded polystyrene at all sample widths. By calculating equivalent length and

Investigation on Smoke Flow in Stairwells induced by an Adjacent Compartment Fire in High Rise Buildings

“…This group of tests was designed to evaluate the influences of different HRRs. Moreover, the HRRs simulated in this section were selected according to combustion tests of common flammable objects that piled up in the stairwell [28][29][30][31]. Moreover, this was carried out with reference to previous studies [15][16][17][18].…”

Fire Spread of Thermal Insulation Materials in the Ceiling of Piloti-Type Structure: Comparison of Numerical Simulation and Experimental Fire Tests Using Small- and Real-Scale Models

“…As the thermal insulation materials in this test, extruded polystyrene (XPS), which is applied in most building structures owing to its excellent constructability and economic efficiency, and flame-retardant expanded polystyrene foam (EPSFs), which is a representative material with semi-incombustible performance [29,30], were used. XPS is produced through extrusion molding by adding a hydrocarbon foaming agent to a polystyrene resin [1,2,[31][32][33]. It has been used in buildings in South Korea where large-scale fires have occurred, and the cause of the fire spread was found to be the thermal insulation materials [2,31,32].…”

Large scale experimental study on the fire hazard of buildings’ U-shape façade wall geometry

“…It was found that the heat transfer mechanism had changed with different sample widths: the flame spread was controlled by convection transfer regime initially while gradually changed to radiation regime as the sample width increased. Huang et al (2011Huang et al ( , 2012 and Jiang et al (2013Jiang et al ( , 2014 investigated the different combustion behaviors of XPS and expanded polystyrene (EPS). Qualitative observations of some thermal properties with some theoretical analysis were provided.…”