Theses and Dissertations from UMD

Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2

New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM

More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.

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    Thermal Characterization of Firebrand Piles
    (2017) Hakes, Raquel Sara Pilar; Gollner, Michael J; Fire Protection Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Over the past several decades, the severity of wildland-urban interface (WUI) fires has increased drastically, resulting in thousands of structures lost globally each year. The cause of the majority of structure losses is ignition via firebrands, small pieces of burning material which are generated from burning vegetation and structures. In this thesis, a methodology for studying the heating to recipient fuels by firebrands is developed. Small-scale experiments designed to capture heating from firebrand piles and the process of ignition were conducted using laboratory-fabricated cylindrical wooden firebrands. The methodology compares two heat flux measurement methods. Experimental results compare the effects of varying firebrand diameter, pile mass, and wind speed. An ignition condition is described using temperature and heat flux.