Abstract
Polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) plates are widely used in buildings or factories for natural lighting. Commonly PMMA plates are installed as a discrete array. However, PMMA plates are very susceptible to fire. Therefore, experimental study on flammability and fire hazard of vertical PMMA plate array with different overlap length (D) was conducted in this work. The average flame height () increases first and then decreases with an increase in the overlap length, and reaches the maximum when D = 40 mm. The discrete flame spread speed () also rises first and then drops with the increase of D, which is mainly due to the heat transfer from the PMMA flame to the next plate. A model for predicting the flame spread rate of discrete PMMA array is established. The predicted results are consistent with experimental ones, with a predicted error smaller than 15%. The average temperature of flame zone rises first and then drops as D increases, reaching the maximum when D = 40 mm. This leads to the same changing trend of radiative heat flux. Results obtained in this work provide a reference for fire hazard evaluation and fire safety design of PMMA plates employed in buildings or industrial sites.
Highlights
In recent years, polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA, referred to as organic glass) has been widely used in industry and buildings due to its advantages, such as better transparency, chemical stability, mechanical properties, weather resistance, easy dyeing, and processing property, as well as graceful appearance
It can be seen from this figure that during the process of flame spread over vertical discrete
Polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), the flame has experienced an incremental process from the ignited sample plates mainly mainly relying on discontinuous flame spread in heat radiation to stable and continuous combustion
Summary
Polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA, referred to as organic glass) has been widely used in industry and buildings due to its advantages, such as better transparency, chemical stability, mechanical properties, weather resistance, easy dyeing, and processing property, as well as graceful appearance. Experimentally studied the effect of spacing between the wall and the PMMA plate (1 mm thick) on the upward flame spread behavior. Their experiment results indicated that, as the spacing increases, the flame height, pyrolysis height, and burning-out length exhibit the same rule, that is, they first increase and decrease. Gong et al [11] experimentally and theoretically analyzed the heat and mass transfer process of the downward flame spread over PMMA plate with limited width. This paper studies flammability and fire hazard of vertical PMMA plate array, analyzes the variation of flame spread rate, flame geometry, heat transfer, and temperature distribution, and reveals the influence mechanism of plate overlap length
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