Kinetic properties estimation for common plastic pallets used in goods transportation

Abstract

Abstract The fire modeling applications often require to predict the fire growth and associated heat release rates by simulating the fuel decomposition. The heat release rate from a burning material can be studied by pyrolysis modeling in the Fire Dynamic simulator (FDS6). Such modeling procedures require various material properties, including kinetic properties such as Pre-exponential factor, Activation Energy, and reaction orders. Plastic pallets are commonly used in transport vehicles and represent key fuel elements in vehicle fires. A thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) at three different heating rates of 5, 20, and 60 K/min is carried out to obtain the mass loss curves and subsequent DTG curves for plastic pallets. The results of TGA analysis are used to find kinetic properties using a combination of model-free method, simple hand calculation, and model-based method.