Limiting oxygen concentration for extinction of upward spreading flames over inclined thin polyethylene-insulated NiCr electrical wires with opposed-flow under normal- and micro-gravity
Type
ArticleAuthors
Hu, LonghuaLu, Yong
Yoshioka, Kosuke
Zhang, Yangshu
Fernandez-Pello, Carlos
Chung, Suk Ho

Fujita, Osamu

KAUST Department
Clean Combustion Research CenterCombustion and Laser Diagnostics Laboratory
Mechanical Engineering Program
Physical Science and Engineering (PSE) Division
Date
2016-10-02Online Publication Date
2016-10-02Print Publication Date
2017Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/622307
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Materials, such as electrical wire, used in spacecraft must pass stringent fire safety standards. Tests for such standards are typically performed under normal gravity conditions and then extended to applications under microgravity conditions. The experiments reported here used polyethylene (PE)-insulated (thickness of 0.15 mm) Nichrome (NiCr)-core (diameter of 0.5 mm) electrical wires. Limiting oxygen concentrations (LOC) at extinction were measured for upward spreading flame at various forced opposed-flow (downward) speeds (0−25 cm/s) at several inclination angles (0−75°) under normal gravity conditions. The differences from those previously obtained under microgravity conditions were quantified and correlated to provide a reference for the development of fire safety test standards for electrical wires to be used in space exploration. It was found that as the opposed-flow speed increased for a specified inclination angle (except the horizontal case), LOC first increased, then decreased and finally increased again. The first local maximum of this LOC variation corresponded to a critical forced flow speed resulted from the change in flame spread pattern from concurrent to counter-current type. This critical forced flow speed correlated well with the buoyancy-induced flow speed component in the wire's direction when the flame base width along the wire was used as a characteristic length scale. LOC was generally higher under the normal gravity than under the microgravity and the difference between the two decreased as the opposed-flow speed increases, following a reasonably linear trend at relatively higher flow speeds (over 10 cm/s). The decrease in the difference in LOC under normal- and microgravity conditions as the opposed-flow speed increases correlated well with the gravity acceleration component in the wire's direction, providing a measure to extend LOC determined by the tests under normal gravity conditions (at various inclination angles and opposed-flow speeds) to LOC under microgravity conditions.Citation
Hu L, Lu Y, Yoshioka K, Zhang Y, Fernandez-Pello C, et al. (2016) Limiting oxygen concentration for extinction of upward spreading flames over inclined thin polyethylene-insulated NiCr electrical wires with opposed-flow under normal- and micro-gravity. Proceedings of the Combustion Institute. Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.proci.2016.09.021.Sponsors
This work was supported by Key Project of National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) under Grant No. 51636008, the Excellent Young Scientist Fund of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) under grant no. 51422606, Newton Advanced Fellowship (NSFC: 51561130158; RS: NA140102), Key Research Program of Frontier Sciences, CAS under Grant No. QYZDB-SSW-JSC029, the Fok Ying-Tong Education Foundation under grant no. 151056, Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities under Grant Nos. WK2320000035, and JSPS Fellowship (P12360) to Longhua Hu, by JAXA to Osamu Fujita as a candidate experiment for the third stage use of JEM/ISS titled “Evaluation of gravity impact on combustion phenomenon of solid material towards higher fire safety”, and by King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) to Suk Ho Chung.Publisher
Elsevier BVAdditional Links
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1540748916304990ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1016/j.proci.2016.09.021