Publications Details
Fast cook-off testing in enclosed facilities with reduced emissions
Sandia National Laboratories has utilized pool fires for over thirty years to subject military components, weapon mockups and hazardous material shipping containers to postulated transportation accident environments. Most of the tests have been performed in either open pools or wind shielded facilities with little control of visible smoke emissions. Because of the increased sensitivity of environmental issues and because wind generates the biggest uncontrollable effect on the thermal environment in open pool fires, enclosed test facilities with reduced visible emissions have been developed. The facilities are basically water cooled enclosures fitted with controlled air supply systems and high temperature afterburners. The purpose of this paper is to present our experience with both open and enclosed fires. In the first section, a review of the fire test facilities is given. A following section presents a mathematical model behind our approach to characterizing the fire environment. In the last section, data from open and closed fires are compared.