When a fire occurs in a ventilation confined compartment, the fire gradually weakened and finally self-extinguishes due to the oxygen concentration in the compartment will decrease and eventually below the flammable limit. Meanwhile, a large amount of high-temperature combustible substance is generated in the compartment during this period by pyrolysis or evaporation of fuel. When the compartment ventilation is improved, such as the window is broken, fresh air flows into the compartment and mix with high-temperature combustible substances and lead to the fire occurs again. This special phenomenon during the development of a compartment fire is called backdraft. In addition, a large amount of high-temperature combustible substances is accumulated in the compartment before the backdraft occurs. Therefore, once a backdraft occurs, it always leads to a flashover, which means a fire has reached fully development stage and is out of control. Hence, a backdraft will lead to substantial finical loss and heavy casualties. To investigate the influence of compartment opening area on backdraft time, we conducted fire experiments of solid fuel in a reduced-scale compartment. The temperature and the gas concentration in the compartment were measured by thermocouples and gas analyzer, respectively. Results show that the backdraft time of solid fuel would become shorter as the opening area of the compartment increases. The results of this research could improve the understanding of the backdraft mechanism of solid fuel and provide a strategy to delay or even restrain the backdraft occurrence for firefighters.
| Published in | American Journal of Civil Engineering (Volume 9, Issue 5) |
| DOI | 10.11648/j.ajce.20210905.14 |
| Page(s) | 173-176 |
| Creative Commons |
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| Copyright |
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Science Publishing Group |
Backdraft, Small-Scale Experiment, Solid Fuel
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APA Style
Jianlong Zhao, Yanfeng Li, Jinxiang Wu. (2021). Effect of the Opening Area of Compartment on the Backdraft Time. American Journal of Civil Engineering, 9(5), 173-176. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajce.20210905.14
ACS Style
Jianlong Zhao; Yanfeng Li; Jinxiang Wu. Effect of the Opening Area of Compartment on the Backdraft Time. Am. J. Civ. Eng. 2021, 9(5), 173-176. doi: 10.11648/j.ajce.20210905.14
AMA Style
Jianlong Zhao, Yanfeng Li, Jinxiang Wu. Effect of the Opening Area of Compartment on the Backdraft Time. Am J Civ Eng. 2021;9(5):173-176. doi: 10.11648/j.ajce.20210905.14
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Download@article{10.11648/j.ajce.20210905.14,
author = {Jianlong Zhao and Yanfeng Li and Jinxiang Wu},
title = {Effect of the Opening Area of Compartment on the Backdraft Time},
journal = {American Journal of Civil Engineering},
volume = {9},
number = {5},
pages = {173-176},
doi = {10.11648/j.ajce.20210905.14},
url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajce.20210905.14},
eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ajce.20210905.14},
abstract = {When a fire occurs in a ventilation confined compartment, the fire gradually weakened and finally self-extinguishes due to the oxygen concentration in the compartment will decrease and eventually below the flammable limit. Meanwhile, a large amount of high-temperature combustible substance is generated in the compartment during this period by pyrolysis or evaporation of fuel. When the compartment ventilation is improved, such as the window is broken, fresh air flows into the compartment and mix with high-temperature combustible substances and lead to the fire occurs again. This special phenomenon during the development of a compartment fire is called backdraft. In addition, a large amount of high-temperature combustible substances is accumulated in the compartment before the backdraft occurs. Therefore, once a backdraft occurs, it always leads to a flashover, which means a fire has reached fully development stage and is out of control. Hence, a backdraft will lead to substantial finical loss and heavy casualties. To investigate the influence of compartment opening area on backdraft time, we conducted fire experiments of solid fuel in a reduced-scale compartment. The temperature and the gas concentration in the compartment were measured by thermocouples and gas analyzer, respectively. Results show that the backdraft time of solid fuel would become shorter as the opening area of the compartment increases. The results of this research could improve the understanding of the backdraft mechanism of solid fuel and provide a strategy to delay or even restrain the backdraft occurrence for firefighters.},
year = {2021}
}
TY - JOUR T1 - Effect of the Opening Area of Compartment on the Backdraft Time AU - Jianlong Zhao AU - Yanfeng Li AU - Jinxiang Wu Y1 - 2021/11/05 PY - 2021 N1 - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajce.20210905.14 DO - 10.11648/j.ajce.20210905.14 T2 - American Journal of Civil Engineering JF - American Journal of Civil Engineering JO - American Journal of Civil Engineering SP - 173 EP - 176 PB - Science Publishing Group SN - 2330-8737 UR - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajce.20210905.14 AB - When a fire occurs in a ventilation confined compartment, the fire gradually weakened and finally self-extinguishes due to the oxygen concentration in the compartment will decrease and eventually below the flammable limit. Meanwhile, a large amount of high-temperature combustible substance is generated in the compartment during this period by pyrolysis or evaporation of fuel. When the compartment ventilation is improved, such as the window is broken, fresh air flows into the compartment and mix with high-temperature combustible substances and lead to the fire occurs again. This special phenomenon during the development of a compartment fire is called backdraft. In addition, a large amount of high-temperature combustible substances is accumulated in the compartment before the backdraft occurs. Therefore, once a backdraft occurs, it always leads to a flashover, which means a fire has reached fully development stage and is out of control. Hence, a backdraft will lead to substantial finical loss and heavy casualties. To investigate the influence of compartment opening area on backdraft time, we conducted fire experiments of solid fuel in a reduced-scale compartment. The temperature and the gas concentration in the compartment were measured by thermocouples and gas analyzer, respectively. Results show that the backdraft time of solid fuel would become shorter as the opening area of the compartment increases. The results of this research could improve the understanding of the backdraft mechanism of solid fuel and provide a strategy to delay or even restrain the backdraft occurrence for firefighters. VL - 9 IS - 5 ER -
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