Effect of the Cone Heater Scale Compliant with the ISO 5660 Standard on Spatial Uniformity of Radiant Heat Flux

• Published in: Fire Science and Engineering Vol. 34; no. 5; pp. 27 - 33
• Main Authors: Ryu, Sanghoon, Mun, Sun-Yeo, Hwang, Cheol-Hong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 31.10.2020
• ISSN: 1738-7167; 2508-6804
• DOI: 10.7731/KIFSE.ad1befcd

Physical quantities such as mass loss rate, heat release rate, and total heat release are often measured through a cone calorimeter (a representative bench-scale apparatus) and are primarily considered as values per unit area. Hence, the uniformity of radiant heat flux supplied by the cone heater to the specimen is very important with respect to the measurement results’ validity. In this study, on the basis of the ISO 5660 standard, the uniformity of radiant heat flux at the specimen surface was evaluated for the cone heaters used with the cone calorimeter. It is observed that a normal cone heater (NCH) compliant with the ISO 5660-1 standard satisfies the requirement of uniformity within a range of ± 2% in the central 5 cm × 5 cm area, but it has a large deviation of approximately 13% at the position corresponding to the edge of the specimen. In addition, the duration of NCH usage does not significantly affect the distribution of radiant heat flux. Furthermore, it is observed that a large cone heater compliant with the ISO/TC 5660-4 standard can supply moderately-uniform radiant heat flux over the entire surface area (10 cm × 10 cm) of the specimen.