A REDESIGN OF THE EXHAUST AND GAS SAMPLING SYSTEM OF THE FIRE PROPAGATION APPARATUS
A REDESIGN OF THE EXHAUST AND GAS SAMPLING SYSTEM OF THE FIRE PROPAGATION APPARATUS
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Date
2022
Authors
Roy, Shuvam
Advisor
Stoliarov, Stanislav
Raffan-Montoya, Fernando
Raffan-Montoya, Fernando
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Abstract
Standard bench scale fire apparatuses are useful tools to perform repeatable and reproducible firetests that acquire key fire properties, such as heat release rate and time to ignition, for materials in
a cost-effective manner. The Fire Propagation Apparatus (FPA) is one of the only standard bench
scale apparatuses that has the ability to acquire these key fire properties in a controlled
environment setting. However, the design of the apparatus is quite complex. In this work, the
exhaust and gas sampling system designs were redesigned and constructed to increase modularity
and manufacturability, adapt to the University of Maryland’s Department of Fire Protection
Engineering laboratory settings, and provide greater ease for the end user operations. After the
construction of the FPA systems, tests were conducted to verify the accuracy of the measurement
devices. Equations for the calculation of heat release rate from FPA sensor data were derived and
used for a series of combustion experiments. These equations were compared to the ones provided
in the standard to gain insight on their systematic differences.