Vertical Upward Flamespread on Parallel Panels

Quantitative measurements and visual observations were obtained from a series of 66 full-scale fire growth experiments conducted on 18 unique combustible solids including: natural and synthetic polymers, copolymers, fiberglass-reinforced composite materials, porous polymer foams, and electrical cables. Some of these materials were selected because they can be found in electrical cabinets and circuit boards. Others were selected in order to provide a wide range of material compositions and burning behaviors: physical deformation, soot formation, and varied ignitability and fire growth rate. In a typical electrical enclosure, combustible solids (e.g., wiring or circuit boards) are most often found attached to the inside walls of the enclosure. A test setup was designed to represent this configuration: two parallel panels were assembled such that they could support combustible solids of varying thicknesses, which were then ignited at their base. By maintaining this simplified configuration across each test: (1) a large-scale burning scenario representative of typical fuel loading in an electrical enclosure was produced and (2) experiments could be repeated to highlight the impact of material composition on observed burning behavior while minimizing test sensitivity to variations in other factors such as fuel loading, configuration, or orientation.