STUDY OF LARGE SCALE WOOD CRIB FIRE IN A COMPARTMENT

Abstract

Wood cribs are used in fire experiment as repeatable fuel package for assessing the performance of fire suppressors and to produce the actual fire condition in a compartment. Wood crib can also replicate the real occupants of room which present in the form of furniture. Experiments on wood crib (at large scale) are done because the wood is very much present in underground coal mines. Wood crib test can give us valuable information about the combustion products of wood components that are typically used in mine fire. An experimental setup is designed and fabricated in fire research laboratory to investigate and analysis of large scale wood crib fire in a compartment. In fire research laboratory we have a compartment with dimensions 4m x4mx 4m and having a door opening of2mxlm at the centre of one of the wall to provide natural ventilation effect during the experiments. There is an Exhaust System which is attached to the compartment. Number of experiments are carried out with different cribs having different number of layers and different number of sticks in a single layer. Typical fire characteristics like mass loss rate (MLR), heat release rate (HRR), concentration of •1 CO and CO2 in exhaust gases and decrease in concentration of oxygen are measured by cone calorimeter. Characteristics other than previously mentioned, like heat flux incident at different locations in the compartment such as floor, walls and roof, flame temperature, flame velocity, door temperature, door velocity, temperature at ceilings, are measured by different instruments like heat flux sensor, thermocouple and bidirectional probes. We expect that results of these experiments, which are included in this report, may proved to be very useful in the fire safety of compartment.