Studying firebrands interaction with flat surface of various wood construction materials in laboratory conditions

Abstract

The behavior of wood building materials (plywood, oriented strand board, particle board) exposed to burning and smoldering firebrands is investigated in this work. To control the temperature on the surface of the samples, an infrared camera (JADE J530SB) with a 2.5-2.7 micron optical filter that can record the temperature in the range of 300-800 °C was used. The Canon HF R88 video camera was used to evaluate the ignition delay and the behavior of firebrands after falling onto the surface of wood building material samples. In the wind speed range of 0-1 m/s, the ignition of the samples was not observed. A small amount of additional oxidant influx in the landing zone of firebrands caused their slow smoldering on the surface until complete combustion. Thus, it can be concluded that smoldering natural firebrands does not affect the ignition of wood building material samples for the selected experimental parameters. The probability of ignition and the ignition delay of wood were determined depending on the size and number of firebrands, the presence of the air flow in the landing zone of particles, as well as on the initial temperature of wood. The experimental temperature distribution was obtained on the surface of wood exposed to the model ground fire using infrared thermography.