FTIR sampling and analysis of combustion gases for fire toxicity monitoring

摘要

The FAA has developed a unique extractive FTIR system to analyze rapidly changing moist fire gas concentrations as a function of time. The pathlength, cell volume, sample flowrate and system temperature were optimized to provide a rapid response and a sufficient dynamic range to detect gas concentrations generated in the cone calorimeter. A nonlinear classical least squares method was developed to analyze the FTIR data and generate the concentration histories and confidence limits of the 16 fire gases. Results of the technique are presented for flaming and nonflaming combustion tests of a mix of six common plastics.