Influence of fire accelerant on the thermal degradation and ignition of wood chip

Abstract

It is important in fire investigation and forensic science to understand how a fire accelerant can influence the combustible material in the fire process. In this paper, thermogravimetric analysis and burning tests have been conducted to study the effect of gasoline on the decomposition and ignition of camphorwood. The results have shown that the major effect of gasoline during the wood's decomposition takes place in the stage of dehydration (30~150℃) and major decomposition reaction (250~400℃). The Coats-Redfern integral method has been applied for the degradation in nitrogen, indicating the overall activation energy for the degradation has been decreased with the addition of gasoline to wood. The ignition time has been shortened and the ignition temperature has been reduced with the increase of gasoline volume, and the largest reduced range is 86.3% and 69.5% respectively, but with a limit for saturation. The ignition temperatures dropped with the increase of heat flux for wood with 1 mL of gasoline and, at the lower value of heat flux, the change of ignition temperature and time is more sensitive. The results could help better understand of the effect of fire accelerants in investigations into the cause of fires.

Keywords:

• fire accelerants
• wood
• thermal degradation
• ignition
• fire investigation

Acknowledgements

The work in this study was financially supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (no.WK2320000034)

Additional information

Funding

The work in this study was financially supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (no.WK2320000034).