WALL FLAMES AND IMPLICATIONS FOR UPWARD FLAME SPREAD.

Concepts for predicting the flame spread on materials from laboratory measurements are discussed. Heat transfer which precipitates and precedes upward flame spread on a vertical surface is analyzed. Six materials have been featured. Their relevant flame spread measurements are presented. Heat transfer and flame height results are presented for all samples burned at varying levels of external irradiance. Also complementary results are presented for methane line burner wall fires. An approximate theoretical analysis is included to serve as a guide to identifying the important variables and their relationship for correlation purposes. Experimental results yield flame height proportional to energy release rate, to the 2/3 power, and wall heat flux distributions are roughly correlated in terms of distance divided by flame height.