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Aspects of the Motor Vehicle Fire Threat From Flammable Liquid Spills on a Road Surface (NISTIR 6147)

Published

Author(s)

Thomas J. Ohlemiller, Thomas G. Cleary

Abstract

Spills of flammable liquids, particularly gasoline, pose a significant fire hazard subsequent to a motor vehicle crash. Various considerations pertaining to making quantitative estimates of the level of hazard are discussed here. These include preliminary data on the fire point of gasoline/vehicle fluid mixes, estimates of fire size resulting from various gasoline leak rates, limited data on heat transfer from burning gasoline spills and an approximate basis for estimating the het flux exposure time that is required to ignite the surface of a typical plastic component.
Citation
NIST Interagency/Internal Report (NISTIR) - 6147
Report Number
6147

Keywords

motor vehicle fires, flammable liquids, fire point, fuel spills, gasoline, heat transfer, ignition

Citation

Ohlemiller, T. and Cleary, T. (1998), Aspects of the Motor Vehicle Fire Threat From Flammable Liquid Spills on a Road Surface (NISTIR 6147), NIST Interagency/Internal Report (NISTIR), National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, [online], https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.IR.6147 (Accessed March 29, 2024)
Created August 1, 1998, Updated November 10, 2018