Affiliation:
1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Madras, India
2. Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Massachusetts, USA
3. Department of Fire Protection Engineering, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Massachusetts, USA
Abstract
A case study to evaluate the thermo-physical properties and chemical kinetics parameters, which are employed to model the gas-phase combustion taking place over the surface of a condensed fuel, has been presented. This procedure relies on accurate experimental measurements of gaseous pyrolysis products. The pyrolysis gases can be treated as a virtual fuel, namely C xH yO z, where x, y, and z are estimated by performing atom balances for C, H, and O atoms in all the pyrolysis species. Thermo-physical properties of this virtual fuel are calculated based on the temperature and species concentration of the pyrolysis mixture. Similarly, based on the rate constant values of the reactant species present in the pyrolysis mixture, Arrhenius parameters such as pre-exponential factor and activation energy have been calculated. Polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) is used as an example fuel in this study, and a step-by-step procedure for the estimation of the thermo-physical properties and global reaction kinetics parameters of PMMA at low to moderate ambient pressure environment is presented. In general, the technique discussed here can be applied to any condensed fuel. Following the procedure reported in this study, modelling parameters can be evaluated for complex fuels.