B.C. Levin, E. Braun, M. Paabo, R.H. Harris, M. Navarro

Two full-scale protocols (A&B) were tested to determine the efficacy of cuprous oxide in reducing the concentrations of hydrogen cyanide from flexible polyurethane foams when thermally decomposed under "realistic" room conditions.

B.J. McCaffrey, W.J. Rinkinen, Thir I. Eklund

A series of tests were conducted to examine the effect of the ventilation on the environment in an aircraft passenger cabin during an in-flight fire. These tests were run in a reduced scale mockup of an aircraft passenger cabin. A propane burner operating at 10 or 30 kilowatts served as the fire source. The simulated seats and the cabin lining material were both noncombustible. The vertical temperature and gas concentration profiles in the cabin were measured as a function of time. Reversing the normal ventilation flow direction by introducing the forced air at the floor level and exhausting it at the ceiling significantly reduced the measured temperatures and gas concentrations. Opening two 152- by 305-millimeter hatched in the end walls at the ceiling level to the outside air resulted in a significant reduction in the measured gas concentrations.

Richard G. Hill, Timothy R. Marker, Constantine P. Sarkos

This paper describes a series of full-scale fire test to evaluate the effectiveness of an on-board aircraft cabin water spray system against postcrash fires. The system consisted of an array of nozzles, at the ceiling, which continuously discharged water throughout the cabin for 3 minutes. Several fire scenarios were examined, including a wind-driven external fuel fire adjacent to a fuselage opening and a quiescent fuel fire impinging upon an intact fuselage. Also, both narrow-body and wide-body test articles were utilized. An analysis if the hazard measurements using a fractional effective dose model indicated he water spray provided approximately 2-3 minutes of additional survival time all but the most severe scenario tested. Additionally, a zoned water spray system was conceptualized, designed and tested under full-scale conditions in an attempt to reduce the weight penalty of water. Initial test results indicated that a zoned system may be designed to give more protection than a continuous spray system with approximately 10 percent of the water.

Richard Hill

The Fire Safety Branch at the Technical Center in Atlantic City New Jersey is the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Research and Development (R&D) organization responsible for providing data to the regulatory organizations within the FAA for their use in developing, modifying and/or interpreting rules and regulations pertaining to aircraft fire safety. The Fire Safety Branch for developed many of the fire safety standards adopted by civil aviation authorities throughout the world and is presently involved in R&D for future improvements.

Richard L. Smith

Improvements of the heater and the heat detector used in the FAA’s Smoke Chamber test protocol are described. Heater designs were evaluated and two heaters were obtained and evaluated. This report covers various aspects of analysis and gives details on the heater that may provide a more uniform radiation field on the target specimen. The use of a smaller gauge, similar to the one used in the OSU calorimeter, in the smoke box for measuring the heat flux is discussed. Finally, a method that allows one to use the measurement of the radiation field at the center of the target specimen to infer the average radiation field over the specimen is presented.