Citation

Merrill Galloway F, Hirschler MM. Fire Safety J. 1990; 16(1): 33-52.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1990, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

An improved HCl transport and decay model has been used to predict HCl concentrations in a series of large-scale fire experiments which involve either the combustion of PVC or the injection of pure HCl.The model used is a zone model, and it has been improved by incorporating a better mathematical treatment of the effects of humidity and better prediction of the variation of humidity and associated HCl concentration with temperature. A number of parameters, e.g. flow rates and temperatures, were calculated by means of the fire and smoke transport model FAST. The model predicts experimental results well. Its results show, moreover, that the decrease in concentration found experimentally is related mainly to transfer of HCl to the walls and reaction at the wall surface and not to HCl losses resulting from flow dynamics.Other combustion gases, such as carbon monoxide, would decrease in concentration only by physical processes. Thus, in a fire, the relative toxic importance of HCl, as compared with non-decaying fire gases, would decrease as the smoke layer moves away from the fire zone.The HCl concentrations in the target room ranged from 13 to 33% of those in the burn room.