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Correlation analysis of cone calorimetry and microscale combustion calorimetry experiments

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Abstract

Flammability studies are conducted to evaluate the behavior of materials exposed to fire. In this study, microscale combustion calorimetry (MCC) and cone calorimetry methods were applied to acquire the flammability characteristics of red and grey extruded polystyrene (XPS) samples. To understand the effect of changes between parameters, Pearson’s correlation coefficient was used to examine their linear relationships. From the research, moderate and weak correlations were recorded between the total heat release rates from both methods for red and grey XPS, respectively. Plotting peak heat release rate against heat release temperature for MCC and ignition temperature for cone test showed that 25, 35 and 50 kW m−2 incident heat fluxes of the cone test fall within 0.2 K s−1 and 0.5 K s−1 heating rates of MCC. Also, all the MCC parameters except char yield and total heat release presented good correlations with the cone calorimetry flammability characteristics. Hence, MCC could be used in conjunction with cone calorimetry to accurately and reliably assess the flammability of materials.

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Abbreviations

\(\beta\) :

Heating rate in MCC test/K s−1

\({\text{Bi}}\) :

Biot’s number

\(c\) :

Specific heat/J g−1 K−1

\(h\) :

Heat transfer coefficient/W m−2 K−1

\(h_{\text{g}}\) :

Heat of gasification/MJ kg−1

\(k\) :

Thermal conductivity/W m−1 K−1

\(L_{\text{c}}\) :

Characteristic length/m

\(m_{\text{o}}\) :

Initial mass of sample/g

\(m_{\text{p}}\) :

Mass of residue/g

\(\eta_{\text{c}}\) :

Heat release capacity/J g−1 K−1

pHRR:

Peak heat release rate/W g−1

pTemp:

Temperature at pHRR/°C

\(q_{\text{in}}\) :

Incident heat flux/kW m−2

\(q_{\hbox{max} }\) :

Maximum value of heat release rate per unit area/kW m−2

THR:

Total heat release/kJ g−1

T ig :

Ignition temperature/°C

t ig :

Time to ignition/s

\(\Delta T_{\text{ig}}\) :

Change in ignition temperature/°C

T py :

Pyrolysis temperature/°C

\(\rho\) :

Density/kg m−3

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Acknowledgements

This research is supported by the National Natural Science Fund of China, No. 51776098 and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, No. 30918015101.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mechanical Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210094, China

    Rhoda Afriyie Mensah, Qiang Xu & Solomon Asante-Okyere

  2. School of Computer Science and Technology, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210094, China

    Cong Jin

  3. School of Management Science and Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, 212013, China

    Geoffrey Bentum-Micah

Authors
  1. Rhoda Afriyie Mensah
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  2. Qiang Xu
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  4. Cong Jin
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Correspondence to Qiang Xu.

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Mensah, R.A., Xu, Q., Asante-Okyere, S. et al. Correlation analysis of cone calorimetry and microscale combustion calorimetry experiments. J Therm Anal Calorim 136, 589–599 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10973-018-7661-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10973-018-7661-5

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