UID: 111240364 LAB 2 February 24, 2014 SMOKE CHAMBER ASTM E662: Standard Test Method for Specific

Optical Density of Smoke Generated by Solid Materials.

Results
1. The students are first asked to graph the photodiode output against as time increases. Figure 1 for flaming fire stays constant Figure 1. Graph of Photodiode output VP (mV) versus time(s) for 276 seconds before decreasing exponentially. The 350 highest voltage output of the smoldering 300 photodiode is measured in the flaming first minutes of the lab when 250 there is not smoke present. This 200 value is seen in figure 1 to be 150 289.69 mV. It finally reaches its lowest point at 718 seconds, at 100 which it reaches 119 mV. 50 Figure 1 for smoldering fire also starts constant at 290 mV, but 0 only for 65 seconds. The smoke 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 time(s) starts to interfere with the photodiode output at after this time, and experiences a sharp exponential decline to 10 mV at 300 seconds. The plot for smoldering has a short period of time before light extinction occurs and it experiences a much sharper and lower decline than flaming. 2. Students are asked to find the blocked beam reading (Vb). To find Vb, an average of the measured values was taken over 58 seconds. Vb = -0.23098mV. This value is very close to the approximate value of Vb = -0.2 given by Professor Sunderland in Figure 2. Graph of Vb versus time class. Next, the clear beam -0.222 Vb average reading, Vc, was calculated. The -0.224 Vb, mV first few minutes of the Vp for -0.226 flaming in fig. 1 were averaged to approximate a value for Vc. The -0.228 first 176 seconds of Vp for flaming -0.23 seemed to be an appropriate range to average to find Vc because the -0.232 graph is still remotely linear to that -0.234 point. The clear beam reading was
Vb(mV)

Vp(mV)

-0.236
-0.238

10

20

30
Time(s)

40

50

60

calculated to be, Vc, flaming = 283.5337 mV. The same process was used to find Vc for the smoldering fire. The Vp for smoldering were average from 0 to 65 seconds to give, Vc, smoldering = 287.3003 mV. There is no surprise that the Vc for both smoldering and flaming fires are similar because Olga cleaned the windows very well on both experiments. 3. The photodiode outputs are normalized to create, Vn, and are then graphed against time. The photodiode outputs are normalized using the equation,
Figure 3. Graph of normalized Voltage versus time(s)
1.2

. Vn is dimensionless and lies between 0 and 1. Fig. 3 shows the same trend for the flaming and smoldering fire as did fig.1. Both plots start out, until they hit some critical time, after which an exponential decline occurs. Vn for the smoldering fire has a sharper decline to 0.01 at approximately 320 seconds before plateauing. Vn for flamming fires starts to decline at around 278 seconds. Unlike the smoldering fire, the Vn for flaming steadily decreases down to .42 at the end of 718 seconds.

1 0.8
Vn

smoldering flaming

0.6 0.4 0.2

0 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700

time(s)

4. The transitivity, T, for the smoldering and flaming fires were found with the equation, . T is dimensionless Figure 4. Graph of Transitivity (dimensionless) versus time(s) and is between 0 and 1. T was 1.2 then graphed in figure 4. The plot of transmittance shown in smoldering 1 Figure 4, shares the same flaming patterns and trends as the graph 0.8 of photodiode output in figure 1. The graphs are characterized by 0.6 a straight trend followed by an exponential decline. When 0.4 compared to published
T

0.2 0 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700

time(s)

measurements, figure 4 looks fairly accurate. The published graph of transitivity, figure 5, follows the same trend as figure 4. Figure 4 only shows the transitivity under flaming and smoldering conditions up to 12 minutes. Figure 5 shows transitivity up to 20 minutes. The similar plateau followed by the exponential decline is noticeable in both. The published graph in figure 5 also agrees with approximately 300 seconds being a critical time for flaming and smoldering conditions. For flaming conditions, that time indicates when the smoke interferes with photodiode output and starts the decline in transitivity. For smoldering conditions, it represents the time at which the transitivity reaches its lowest point and plateaus.
Figure 5. Graph of Published Transitivity and Ds vs. time(s)

5. The specific optical density, Ds, under flaming and smoldering conditions was found using the equation, ( ). Ds is dimensionless. It is then graphed over time in figure 6. Under flaming conditions, Ds has a parabolic increase from 0 to 739. Under smoldering conditions, Ds is negative till 278 second, then it steadily increases to 87. Figure 6 is very similar to the graph of Ds shown in the publish graph of figure 5. Smoke was only observed for 12 minutes under flaming and smoldering conditions during

Figure 6. Graph of Optical density (dimensionless) versus time(s)

795

695
595 495
Ds

smoldering flaming

395
295 195 95

-5
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700
time(s)

the lab in class. The publish data in figure 5 shows a full 20 minute time interval. Even with this slight difference in times, the first 12 minutes of figure 5 follows the same patterns and trends as figure 6. 6. If the test had lasted the full 1200 seconds, the graph of Ds over time would have most likely followed its current parabolic trend. When you look closely towards the end of 718 seconds the values of Ds already start to decrease for both smoldering and flaming conditions. So the max is most likely reached within the 718 seconds. Under smoldering conditions, Ds, max = 742.5411. Under flaming conditions, Ds, max = 88.18712. These values compare favorably with published data [Smoldering: (Ds, max = 600, Flaming: (Ds, max = 67, 3rd Edition SFPE Handbook]. The values are slightly higher than published measurements but that can be accounted for by all the various interference in the lab. 7. Dm, the mass optical density, was found with the equation ( ) . M is the

mass loss of plywood specimen and was found using the values from table 1. Under flaming conditions, Dm = 0.026109 m2/g. Table 1. Measured masses for flaming and smoldering Under smoldering conditions, Dm tests of plywood = 0.257070697m2/g. Initial mass of Final mass of M Dm for smoldering conditions is specimen and specimen and
holder, g Flaming Smoldering 265.2 269.3 holder, g 250.7 256.9 14.5 12.4

8. Published literature lists the Dm for plywood as .29m2/g under pyrolysis or smoldering. This value is very close to the calculated value of 0.257070697m2/g. No published value of Dm for flaming conditions could be found. All the figures shown in the lab report agree with the published values. The range of the values under smoldering condition was wider and experienced decreasing quicker than under flaming condition. This is because smoldering fires produce more smoke than flaming fires.

Error Analysis Here are the errors in the lab. The photodiode output has an accuracy of up to 3-4 digits. The accuracy of the photodiode leads me to believe that the uncertainty in any variable that utilized the photodiode output in its calculation can be neglected. Given that the uncertainty in Vp can be neglected, it can be assumed that it is not propagated into any of the equations in which it is used. The only other measure quantity in the lab was the initial and final mass of the plywood and holder in grams. The measured mass of the plywood and holder is accurate

with a 95% confident interval of 2.6 grams (10%). This uncertainty propagated into the calculation for Dm. Under smoldering conditions, an estimate for the uncertainty propagation in Dm, WDm is between 0.212511776m2/g and 0.325273127m2/g. WDm~12% Under flaming conditions, an estimate for the uncertainty propagation in Dm, WDm is between 0.022269m2/g and 0.031548m2/g. WDm~15%

References
G.W. Mulholland, Smoke Production and Properties, in DiNenno, P.J., Editor, SFPE Handbook of Fire Protection Engineering, 4th Edition, SFPE, Bethesda, MD, 2008