Conveyor Belt Fire Testing

摘要

Fifty five conveyor belt fire tests were conducted in the Bureau of Mines located at the Factory Mutual Fire Test Center, West Glocester, R.I. The objectives were to: (1) determine the fire resistance and burning characteristics of various conveyor belt materials under simulated mine conditions, (2) provide essential data for designing a reliable bench-scale conveyor belt fire resistance test, and (3) determine fire test conditions that will discriminate between low, moderate, and high fire resistant materials. Belts, representative of those that could be found in underground coal mines were examined under a number of experimental conditions that included ignition intensity, air flow rate, ratio of belt height (h2) to overall gallery height (h1), exposure time, and belt width. The fire propagation was achieved for some fire resistant belts when exposed to an ignition source of = or > 6,000 Btu/min for a 15-min period at a belt height ratio of 0.66. There appears to be a dependency of flame propagation on air flow rates and belt width, although the tests performed do not provide a quantitative trend. Recommendations are made for additional work to resolve some anomalous data and to fill voids in the test program.