Lawrence M. Krasner

A study of hand-held fire extinguishers aboard civil aviation aircraft involved a detailed survey of the past, current and potential use of hand held extinguishers in civil aviation. A comprehensive literature search was conducted in conjunction with numerous on-site visits to a wide spectrum of users and manufacturers within the United States. Data on pertinent regulations, standards, policy, loss history, and testing were accumulated, reviewed, and analyzed. An evaluation of current practice and of the effectiveness and suitability of various hand-held extinguishers was conducted. Also included was an attempt to quantify the actual national experience of in-flight fires.

Thomas M. Guastavino, Louise C. Speitel, Robert A. Filipczak

Selected aircraft interior materials previously reported are tested by a new methodology. Gas and ion chromatographs linked to computers are utilized to identify and quantify gases evolved from a speciifc thermal exposure. Results are compared to those reported by other methods and instruments. Time concentration profiles are utilized to "Finergerprint" and identify the material by this test evaluation.

Leo Parts, Thomas J. Bucher

Response characteristics of MSA Model 100S Portable Combustible gas Alarm to vapors of JP-4, JP-8, JP-9 and JP-10 were determined. A flame ionization detector served as the reference sensor. Response curves for the alarm to the indicated vapors were established>

Response characteristics of the alarm to mixtures of n-pentane, n-hexane, n-heptanes and n-octane with air were also determined. Hydrocarbon-air mixtures and n-octane with air were also determined.

D. A. Kourtides

Aircraft seat materials were evaluated in terms of their thermal performance.

R.L. Alpert, M.K. Mathews, A.T. Modak

The pressure modeling technique is used to study fire spread under five different ceiling materials and analytical and numerical techniques are used to compute thermal radiation to floor level from the resultant layer of hot gases near the ceiling. In the physical modeling part of the study, measurements are obtained at one atmosphere (full-scale) and at elevated air pressure characterizing fire growth in a ceiling channel exposed to a developing PMMA wall fire. Pressure modeling predictions of flame spread rates under a PMMA ceiling and flame lengths under an inert ceiling are found to be in reasonable agreement with full-scale behavior. Although fire spread under aircraft material ceilings occurs only at elevated pressure and not at one atmosphere (due to charring effects and the use of full-scale material thickness in the models), exponential growth factors characterizing fire spread rates, mass loss rates and radiant heat loss in the model tests are used to group the five ceiling materials according to fire growth hazard. In the second phase of the study, an exact, numerical solution technique is formulated for computing the radiant flux from hot gas layers with arbitrary, three-dimensional variations in gas temperature and absorption coefficient. A simplified, analytic approximation involving the use of a suitably averaged gas temperature and absorption coefficient is compared with the exact technique for the calculation of radiant flux to targets below the ceiling gas layer. It is found that the analytic approximation is adequate even when gradients in temperature are much larger than those expected from real aircraft cabin fires.