Forest fires start mostly in partial combustion. In this paper we present a hydrogen sensor to defect early stages of forest fires. First indoor experiments in a smoke density chamber with wood samples, proved that the sensor produce a strong signal change when the smouldering of wood starts, already before the CO concentration, measured in FTIR spectrometry, exceeds 10 ppm. In outdoor experiments we were able to detect forest fire in a distance of 110 m.
Zur Toxizität von Brandgasen insbesondere von organischen Stoffen liegen bisher noch unzureichende Erkenntnisse vor, obwohl diese für die Sicherheit der damit konfrontierten Personen oft von entscheidender Bedeutung sind. Ziel der hier dargestellten Untersuchungen ist es, die Zusammensetzung des Brandgases und die Menge der Brandgaskomponenten im Brandfall zu beurteilen und zu quantifizieren sowie entsprechende Prozeduren hierfür aufzuzeigen. Dazu wurden verschiedene Brandszenarien, die durch Verwendung von unterschiedlichen Arten von Prüföfen simuliert wurden, sowie Proben in den unterschiedlichen Größenmaßstäben untersucht. Durch den Einsatz eines mobilen FTIR-Gerätes (Fourier Transformations Infrarot Spektroskopie) ist es experimentell möglich, zeitaufgelöst quantitative Bestimmungen einzelner toxischer Brandgaskomponenten während der jeweiligen Brandszenarien zu ermitteln und somit eine Abschätzung der Toxizität vorzunehmen. Am Beispiel von Polyvinylchlorid (PVC) wird gezeigt, welche Auswirkungen die unterschiedlichen Brandszenarien auf die qualitative und quantitative Brandgaszusammensetzung haben.
The hazards for passengers during vehicle fires result from the increasing temperature and the emitted smoke gases. A fire was set on a car to investigate the development of temperature and of gaseous fire products in the passenger compartment. The study was based on a full-scale test with a reconstructed scene of a serious car fire. The aim of this work was to identify the conditions for self-rescuing of passengers during a car fire.
A dummy, equipped with several thermocouples, was placed on the driver’s seat. Also, the smoke gases were continuously collected through a removable probe sensor corresponding to the nose of the dummy in the passenger compartment and analyzed using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Additionally, several car components were investigated in the smoke density chamber (smoke emission and smoke gas composition). It was found that the toxic gases already reached hazardous levels by 5 min, while the temperatures at the dummy were at that time less than 80 °C. The toxicity of smoke gases was assessed using the
fractional effective dose concept. The various experimentally parameters (temperature and smoke gas composition) were implemented into numerical simulations with fire dynamics simulator. Both the experimental data and the numerical simulations are presented and discussed.