Study on optimum determination of thermo-pyrolysis properties using cone calorimeter data

초록

In performing fire simulations accurate thermo-pyrolysis property data are very important in order to predict thermal status correctly. In this study determination of the thermo-pyrolysis properties of materials are studied by using a cone calorimeter which is used to measure the historic temperature and the mass loss rate of the test material. Thermal decomposition on the surface of solid materials is occurred by receiving the radiative heat transfer from the external heat source. In this process the heat transfer through the test plate is considered as an unsteady one dimensional problem and an optimization algorithm is applied for estimating the properties related to the reaction pyrolysis. In this study one dimensional pyrolysis code is developed including the repulsive particle swarm optimization (RPSO) algorithm for the property estimation. Historic temperature and mass loss rate are used as the input data for the optimization process. Thermocouple, optical radiation thermometer and infrared thermometer are used to measure the surface temperature of the test plate. The inversely estimated properties from the repulsive particle swarm optimization (RPSO) algorithm agreed fairly well the given properties used for generating the pemperature and mass loss rate history. Also The estimated properties(thermal conductivity, specific heat, density, heat of pyrolysis, activation energy and pre-exponential factor for test plates) showed a good agreement with experimental data.