• Journal of the Korean Institute of Illuminating and Electrical Installation Engineers
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• v.28 no.10
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• pp.49-55
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• 2014

This paper is basic study for development of an advanced photoelectric type smoke detector that has high reliability by reducing the occurrence of nuisance alarms. This paper was attempted to distinguish optical characteristics of the typical fire smoke particle and non-fire smoke particle. According to UL 268 standards, three types of test fires (the paper, the wood and the flammable liquid) were used in this paper for measurement of the fire smoke particles, and the water vapor and the cigarette smoke that were known as the main cause of the nuisance alarms were also used for the non-fire smoke particles. A smoke detection chamber was created, which was equipped with one light source and several light sensors for enabling simultaneous detection of light extinction and scattering, respectively. This paper analyzes the optical characteristics of each smoke particle using this chamber.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.8-15
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• 2017

Most fire victims succumb to smoke inhalation, and fire smoke toxicity from interior materials is increasing with increased use of plastics. Large amounts of hazardous effects of smoke are related to deposition of smoke particles in respiratory tracts, and deposition characteristics are influenced by size distribution of particles. Thus, it is essential to know the size distribution of smoke particles from plastics for hazard analysis of fire smoke. In a recent study, it has been shown that size distributions of smoke particles from PP are different from wood in many aspects. In order to know whether other plastics show the same characteristics as PP, size distributions of smoke particles from four plastic materials (LDPE, PA66, PMMA, and PVC) were measured in real time under each fire type with various temperature and oxygen supply. In this study, smoke particles from different plastics were generated uniformly by using steady-state tube furnace method provided in ISO/TS 19700. Their size distributions were measured by using an electrical low pressure impactor (ELPI). Results of measurements showed that size distributions of smoke particles from these four plastic materials were similar to those from PP in many aspects. However, they were distinctively different from those of wood.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.681-691
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• 2011

The size distributions of smoke particles from fire are prerequisite for the studies on fire detection and adverse health effects. Above the flame of the fire, coagulation dominates and the smoke particles grow from 1 to 50 nm up to 100 to 3,000 nm, sizes ranging from the free-molecular regime to the continuum regime. The characteristics of the agglomeration of the smoke particles are well known, independently for each of the free-molecular and continuum regimes. However, there are not many systematic studies in the entire regime by the complexity of the mechanisms. The purpose of this work is to find the characteristics of the development of the size distribution of smoke particles by agglomeration in the entire size range covering the free-molecular regime, via transition regime, to the near-continuum and continuum regime for each variation of parameters such as fractal dimension, primary particle size and dimensionless coagulation time. In this work, the dynamic equation for the discrete-size spectrum of the particles was solved using a nodal method based on the modification of a sectional method. In the calculation, the collision frequency function for the entire regime, which is derived by using the concept of collision volume and general enhancement function, was applied. The self-preserving size distribution for the entire regime is compared with the ones for the free-molecular or continuum regimes for each variation of the parameters.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.64-70
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• 2014

The neural networks were able to be used by analyze fire source with the optical characteristics of smoke particles. The neural networks were learned the optical characteristics for three types test fire (paper, wood, flammable liquid). These test fires which were adopted in this study were also used to performance test of smoke detector according to UL268. A smoke chamber which was able to detect light extinction and scattering simultaneously was created. The optical characteristics of smoke particles were measured by the smoke chamber. And the results were used to input data for the neural networks. The neural networks distinguished the fire source accurately for paper fire, wood fire or flammable liquid fire. The neural networks distinguished accurately the combined fire source such as paper-wood fire, paper-flammable liquid fire or wood-flammable liquid fire.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.44-51
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• 2014

Smoke from fire is a mixture of combustion gases and particles which include micro-droplets formed from condensed organic vapors and carbonaceous agglomerates. The inhalation of smoke particles causes adverse health effects, and it is prerequisite for the hazard and risk analysis of the smoke particles to know how they behaviour in the respiratory tract. The characteristics of the absorption and adsorption of toxic gases and the amount and location of the particle deposition within the respiratory tract that determine the adverse health effects are related to the morphology and the size distribution of smoke particles. In the present work, as a preliminary study for the adverse health effects of smoke particles, the morphologies of the smoke particles from combustible materials were investigated for each fire stage: smouldering, well-ventilated flaming, small under-ventilated flaming, fully-developed under-ventilated fire. The steady-state tube furnace method given in ISO/TS 19700 was used for the generation of smoke particles. The fire stages were controlled by changing furnace temperature and equivalent ratio. The morphologies were analyzed by using Transmission Electron Microscope (Bio-TEM) by collecting the particles on TEM grids put on each stage of a cascade impactor.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.95-104
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• 2019

Smoke generated in a fire consists of gaseous substances and particulate matter, such as unburned carbon that adsorbed the gases. Human injury caused by inhalation of gaseous substances present in smoke is mostly short-term, whereas damage caused by inhalation of particulate matter is relatively a long-term phenomenon depending on the state of the gas-phase adsorption. The amount and location of the deposited smoke particles are important factors in estimating the damage caused to humans, which are affected by the breathing conditions as well as particle conditions, such as the size and concentration affected by the combustion conditions. In this study, in order to understand the characteristics of the deposition of smoke particles in the respiratory tract related to the study of human smoke inhalation injury, the number and mass concentration of smoke particles deposited in different areas of the respiratory tract for different fuel types, combustion conditions and breathing conditions were calculated. In addition, the amount of mass deposition of smoke in the respiratory tract for a certain period of inhalation was compared with the atmospheric standard of fine dust.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.65-73
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• 2016

In this paper which was performed to bring public attention to the need for developing an photoelectric smoke detector that detects smokes emitted from diverse fire sources, it was confirmed that the photoelectric smoke detector may not respond to certain smoke types depending on the size and color of smoke particles. The test was performed on a photoelectric smoke detector which is being used generally for specific fire targets specified in UL268, including paper fire, wood fire and flammable liquid fire, while the actual response performance of the fire detector, as well as respective smoke particles collected from different fire source which were photographed with a SEM(Scanning electron microscope) were analyzed in the test for this study.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.37-42
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• 2016

The dimensionless extinction constants of smoke particles produced from burning of soy methyl ester (B100) biodiesel and ultra low sulfur diesel (ULSD) fuels were measured. To this end, optical measurements of smoke volume fraction with the aid of a He-Ne laser at 633 nm were compared to the simultaneous gravimetric measurements. The average value of measured dimensionless extinction constants at 633 nm was 11.8 for biodiesel smoke particles and 11.1 for diesel smoke particles, respectively whose values are very comparable withing the range of measurement uncertainty (${\pm}10.1%$). The analysis of Raman spectroscopy revealed that overall characteristics of light extinction between particles produced from each fuel may differ from each other.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.19 no.2 s.58
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• pp.8-12
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• 2005

A fire in a clean room may cause a serious loss by spreading smoke particles. The effects of the width of smoke curtains on delay in smoke spread, which is located the work area boundaries, were investigated by using a computational fluid dynamics, for loss prevention by smoke spreading from one fire area to another. The fire scenario was set to a 1 MW methanol fire in a space of $30m\times10m$ floor and 4 m high. Distributions of temperature and smoke particles were compared for the width of the smoke curtains 0 (without smoke curtains), 1, 2, 3m. It was confirmed that a larger width of the smoke curtain delays spread of smoke more, and that making the work areas compartments is necessary to confine the smoke in the fire area.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.21 no.2 s.66
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• pp.64-73
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• 2007

The absorption characteristics of hazardous materials onto human body and defense mechanism differ from each other region within the respiratory tracts, thus adverse health effects of inhaled smokes are associated with not only the concentration but also the location of the particles deposited. In this work, the deposition fraction per surface area and the deposition sites of the smoke particles in human respiratory tracts for each rest and light exercise conditions together with oral and nasal breathing were calculated by using segmental volume tracking method. The results would be used for deriving the amount of absorption of hazardous materials onto human body, thus contribute to the health risk assessments of inhaled fire smokes.