A REDESIGN OF THE EXHAUST AND GAS SAMPLING SYSTEM OF THE FIRE PROPAGATION APPARATUS

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.