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Spontaneous Combustion and Self-Heating

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SFPE Handbook of Fire Protection Engineering

Abstract

The term spontaneous combustion will be used here to refer to the general phenomenon of an unstable (usually oxidizable) material reacting and evolving heat, which to a considerable extent is retained inside the material itself by virtue of poor thermal conductivity of either the material or its container. Under some circumstances this process can lead to flaming combustion and overt fire, in which case it is properly called spontaneous ignition, which here is regarded as a special case of spontaneous combustion. This has been responsible for significant losses of life and enormous losses of property. Fire loss statistics from many sources show that spontaneous ignition is quoted as the cause in a much greater proportion of cases with multimillion-dollar losses than in smaller fires. Of course, one should also note that the proportion of “cause unknown” results follows a similar trend, probably due to the greater degree of destruction, and hence evidence loss, in larger fires.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Bagasse is the residue from sugar cane after extraction, usually containing 50 % water.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Sydney, Sydney, 2006, Australia

    Brian F. Gray

Authors
  1. Brian F. Gray
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Aon Fire Protection Engineering, Greenbelt, MD, USA

    Morgan J. Hurley P.E., FSFPE (Editor-in-Chief) (Editor-in-Chief)

  2. Hughes Associates, Baltimore, USA

    Daniel Gottuk Ph.D., P.E.

  3. National Fire Protection Association, Quincy, USA

    John R. Hall Jr. Ph.D.

  4. Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

    Kazunori Harada Dr. Eng.

  5. National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, USA

    Erica Kuligowski Ph.D.

  6. Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, USA

    Milosh Puchovsky P.E., FSFPE

  7. The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Australia

    José Torero Ph.D.

  8. The Fire Safety Institute, Quincy, USA

    John M. Watts Jr. Ph.D., FSFPE

  9. FM Global, Johnston, USA

    Christopher Wieczorek Ph.D.

Nomenclature

C ν

Heat capacity at constant volume per unit mass (J/K⋅mol)

c

Concentration (mol/m3)

cf

Feed concentration in CSTR (mol/m3)

CAT

Critical ambient temperature (K)

CST

Critical stacking temperature (K)

E

Activation energy (J/mol)

F

Feed rate in CSTR (m3/s)

f(c)

Chemical reaction rate (mol/m3⋅s)

Q

Heat of reaction (J/mol)

R

Universal gas constant (J/mol⋅K)

r

Characteristic radius

S

Surface area (m2)

T

Temperature (K)

T a

Ambient temperature (K)

T a,critical

Critical ambient temperature (CAT) (K)

T f

Feed temperature in CSTR (K)

TTI

Time to ignition (s)

u

Dimensionless temperature (RT/E)

u a

Dimensionless ambient temperature

V

Volume of self-heating body (m3)

ν

Dimensionless concentration (c/c 0)

δ

Frank-Kamenetskii parameter

θ

Frank-Kamenetskii dimensionless temperature

ρ

Bulk density (mol/m3)

κ

Thermal conductivity (W/m⋅K)

χ

Heat-transfer coefficient (W/m2⋅K)

ε

Inverse dimensionless heat of reaction

τ

Dimensionless time

l

Dimensionless heat transfer coefficient

Bi

Biot number (χr/κ)

∂()/∂n

Differential coefficient in a direction normal to the boundary of the body

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Gray, B.F. (2016). Spontaneous Combustion and Self-Heating. In: Hurley, M.J., et al. SFPE Handbook of Fire Protection Engineering. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-2565-0_20

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-2565-0_20

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