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Efficiency of sustained burning of layered leaf fuels under external radiant heat flux
Author(s) -
Wang HaiHui,
Yao FengQi,
Tao JunJun,
Zhu Feng
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
fire and materials
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.482
H-Index - 58
eISSN - 1099-1018
pISSN - 0308-0501
DOI - 10.1002/fam.2782
Subject(s) - cone calorimeter , combustion , radiant flux , calorimeter (particle physics) , ignition system , heat of combustion , flux (metallurgy) , radiant energy , heat flux , environmental science , chemistry , materials science , analytical chemistry (journal) , environmental chemistry , thermodynamics , char , radiation , heat transfer , optics , physics , organic chemistry , detector
Summary Efficiency of energy release by burning of layered leaf fuels under external radiant heat flux was studied using a cone calorimeter. By performing the ignition and sustained burning measurements with coniferous and broadleaf plants, a method was developed to determine the combustion efficiency during sustained burning χ c . Experimental results showed that at the same radiant heat flux, an increase in the sample mass (density) leads to substantial decrease in χ c followed by a level‐off, and the increase in leaf moisture content results in significant reduction of χ c . Analysis indicated that χ c is essentially independent to the sample mass when a sample is constituted by three layers. By defining a ratio of the amount of CO produced to that of O 2 consumed during measurement ϕ CO / O 2 , χ c was found to be well correlated by ϕ CO / O 2 with the form χ c = 0.2166ln[0.4655/ ( ϕ CO / O 2 − 0.03177) ], thereby highlighting that energy release efficiency of a sample mainly relies on the extent of O 2 consumed to convert into CO. The parameter χ c acts as an indicator to reveal the combustion states of a fuel during testing, and the parameter ϕ CO / O 2 can be used as an index to evaluate the capacity of leaf fuels to emit toxic gases in specific fire scenarios.