Effect of Spacing on the Flame Propagation Characteristics of PE/Metal Sandwich Insulation Panels

ABSTRACT

To study the effect of spacing on the flame propagation characteristics of polyethylene (PE)/metal sandwich insulation panels, an experimental platform was built to simulate the ejection of a flame from the opening of a building compartment of a high-rise building, and the effects of different spacings and the presence of hemming were investigated. The flame propagation characteristics were summarized from the three perspectives of the flame height, temperature change, and mass-loss rate. A temperature distribution model was established via the combination of the flame height and temperature change, and a mass-loss model was established to judge the degree of flame propagation. The experimental results are as follows. With the increase of the spacing, the flame height was found to first increase and then decrease, after which it finally reached stability. The front flame height reached the peak at the spacing of 6 cm, and the rear flame height reached the peak at the spacing of 9 cm. With the increase of the spacing, the flame temperature and mass-loss rate were found to first increase and then decrease, and both reached the peak values at the spacing of 6 cm. Moreover, the hemming of the thermal insulation panel was found to hinder the spread of flames to a certain extent.

KEYWORDS:

• PE/metal sandwich panel
• spacing between wall and panel
• flame height
• mass loss

Author contribution

Chenxi Huang:Investigation, Data curation, Writing - original draft. Ru Zhou: Methodology, Writing - review & editing, Project administration, Funding acquisition. Zhihao Chen: Conceptualization, Data curation. Tianran Wu: Formal analysis. Yipeng Zhang: Validation. Juncheng Jiang: Supervision.

Highlights

• The influence of the distance between PE metal sandwich panel and wall on the flame propagation behavior is studied.

• The flame height, temperature distribution and average mass loss rate were discussed.

• The fire risk first is changed with the increase of the spacing.

• The installation of wrapping reduce the fire risk.

Declaration

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [51874183,52174190].