Calentamiento por láser: Una técnica mínimamente invasiva para el estudio del calentamiento producido por el fuego en materiales pétreos de construcción

Abstract

Fire is one of the most significant threats to buildings due to the scale of irreparable loss that it generates. Studies on fire effects have shifted recently to more detailed scales of observation, such as micro-cracking, mineralogical and chemical changes, which are more adequately applied to samples from listed buildings. Fire simulation techniques hitherto employed (furnace techniques and real flame tests) may present several limitations such as, for example, the lack of repeatability, the lack of combustion sub-products or, especially, the requirement of large samples. For this last reason it is important to find techniques in which minimal amounts of sample can be used. This paper presents laser irradiation as a suitable technique to simulate "burning" of building materials, as it offers heating physics similar to fire, repeatability of the experiments, the possibility of including the combustion products and, most importantly, it uses less sample material. Laser irradiation allows concentrating a high energy in a small area, permitting tests at micro-scales on small samples collected from buildings.