Modeling the Effect of Thermophysical Properties on Pyrolysis of Intumescent Fire-retardant Materials

Abstract

Thermophysical properties of intumescent fire-retardant (IFR) materials are important input parameters to simulate the pyrolysis process of IFR materials in fire scenarios. In this article, the effects of the thermophysical properties on pyrolysis of IFR materials are simulated based on a pyrolysis model of IFR materials. The selected thermophysical properties here are the specific heat capacity of the virgin material, thermal conductivity of the virgin material and char layer, heat of decomposition, density of virgin material, intumescent temperature, and surface emissivity of virgin material and char layer. Simulated mass loss rates (MLR) for the IFR materials at an incident heat flux of 50 kW/m² are investigated for the varied thermophysical parameter values. The results show that changes in these property values can affect the pyrolysis behavior of materials profoundly. Comparison with experimental results indicates that the simulations of MLR are in reasonably good agreement with the experiments.

Keywords:

• intumescent
• mass loss rate
• pyrolysis
• simulation
• thermophysical properties

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of China NSFC Funds (No. 51006054) and the China NKBRSF project (No. 2012CB724609). At the same time, the authors gratefully acknowledge the editor of this manuscript, P. H. Geil, for his suggestions on improvement of the article especially on grammar.