Experimental and numerical characterisation of the smouldering combustion of peat

Abstract

Smouldering peat fires are a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. As the climate warms, the frequency and severity of peat fires will continue to increase, with a single large fire event contributing as much CO2 to the atmosphere per day as an industrialized country. Estimates of the amount of CO2 released by peat fires contain large uncertainties, driven by overwhelming uncertainty in the mass of peat consumed in these fires. The present work addresses uncertainties in peat fire dynamics and smouldering through an iterative experimental and modelling process. Presented here is a first step towards predicting greenhouse gas emissions. Experiments focus on capturing the mass burnt in a smouldering peat fire and describing the smouldering—pyrolysis and oxidation—process. Mass loss rate is found to vary as a sample is tested in lateral spread vs downward spread configurations. A one-dimensional model of peat smouldering is implemented, with initial qualitative results presented here, showing the drying of wet peat and the pyrolysis front. These results represent the current work in progress on this effort. Further work will compare experimental and simulation results for additional parameters of interest, and simulations will be used to inform which soil parameters to explore experimentally.