Fuel Fire Hazard Penetration into a Model Fuselage as a Function of Circumferential Door Location and Fuel Bed Height

摘要

The purpose of this test program is to devise and evaluate techniques for modeling aircraft cabin fires. A rotatable model fuselage section, 3 feet in diameter and 10 feet long, was placed adjacent to a height-adjustable 4-foot-square pan of JP-4 for fire tests in a quiescent indoor environment. One door on the fuselage side was opened and exposed to the pool fire, while another door in the end of the fuselage remained either opened or closed during the fire test to create natural ventilation effects in the interior. Rotation of the fuselage and raising or lowering the fuel pan provided variations in the resultant interior hazard and led to the following four conclusions: (1) the opening of an additional door always decreases the measured hazard from an external pool fire covering an open doorway in a windless environment; (2) for the specific rotational positions tested on the model, the hazard to the interior from the external fire is increased as the fire base is lowered on the side of the fuselage; (3) when the fuel fire base is maintained at a fixed height with respect to the fuselage, the hazard peaks at the position where actual doorways are installed; and (4) noted discrepancies among past tests with a variety of fuselages can be explained by accounting for differences in door location on the fuselage perimeter and height of the fuel bed. (Author)