A preliminary investigation into the partitioning of the convective and radiative incident heat flux in real fires

With the ever present need to increase the understanding of fire and its destructive potential; there is a requirement for instruments capable of accurate measurement coupled with robustness and economy. Heat flux forms a major factor in any fire analysis but there is a lack of suitable flux measuring instrumentation. As a result of an examination of current literature a thin plate heat flux device has been suggested. To determine its capabilities a one third scale ISO fire test compartment was constructed and instrumented to allow comparisons to be made between the proposed plate devices and available total flux gauges and window type Gardon Gauges. Wall and gas temperatures respectively were measured using Aspirated and Type K thermocouples. The analysis of data from over 30 tests proved encouraging in that the new instrumentation yielded realistic results when compared with radiative Gardon Gauge and total flux gauge output. Experimental analysis conducted so far suggests that the plate device may provide a robust economic and relatively accurate means of heat flux measurement and partitioning.