Smoke Production And Thermal Decomposition Products From Advanced CompositeMaterials

摘要

This report describes the smoke production and thermal decomposition productsfrom the combustion of Advanced Composite Materials (ACM) used on high performance aircraft. There are three distinct project phases with only Phase I described here. The preliminary work (Phase 0) addressed the physical behavior of burning composites, such as mass loss rates, smoke plume dispersion, and the environmental impact of a burning aircraft Results of Phase 0, characterizing and modeling emissions along with subsequent dispersion were presented in TR-AFIT/GEEM/ENV948-21 (Roop et al, 1994). Phase I involves applying methods developed in Phase 0 to chemical and morphological characterization of the smoke produced in a small-scale wind tunnel. Results from these experiments and analytical findings are presented in this report. The combustion conditions were selected to represent a range of real-world scenarios to evaluate potential health effects from exposure to smoke and thermal decomposition products generated during burning of ACM. An analytical protocol for evaluating the characteristics of smoke produced from controlled combustion of test materials was developed. The combustion apparatus used is a modified form of the cone heater combustion module of the UPITT II method developed at the University of Pittsburgh. Phase II is currently underway and will describe the in vivo effects of acute exposure to smoke from burning composition materials.