B027 Experiment radiant heat

Experimental verification of a radiant heat exposure model

Brief:

In an enclosed fire environment, building occupants would expose to thermal radiation from hot surfaces and their choice of evacuation routes would be affected. In assessing the safe exposure time during evacuation through a fire affected compartment in order to prevent skin burns from thermal radiation, calculation methods have been applied to quantify radiation heat transfer between surfaces. In this work, an artificial skin was used to study the thermal behaviour when being exposed to different incident radiant heat fluxes. In particular, an experimental verification using an artificial thermal manikin for a mathematical model of skin layer temperature prediction at certain incident radiant heat flux was presented. The radiant thermal exposure model was used to estimate the temperature rise at the head portion of the manikin due to a nearby heated metal plate and the calculations were compared with the measured temperature on the manikin skin layer. The results showed that these calculations would reasonably estimate the skin layer temperature of a human head and the model would be suitable for some building designs where hazards of thermal radiation to an occupant were expected. Application examples of the calculations were illustrated for certain building designs.

This work forms part of an MEng dissertation. Student: PS Hui, MEng

Further information:

Hui PS, Wong LT, 2005. Experimental verification of a radiant heat exposure model, Proceedings of the 2005 Asia-Pacific Conference on Risk Management and Safety-Challenges in Engineering Applications and Advances in Technologies, Hong Kong Association of risk Management and Safety, Kowloon Shangri-La Hotel, Hong Kong, 1-2 Dec, pp. 252-258.