CHARACTERIZATION OF THE FIRE BEHAVIOR OF A BURNING PASSENGER CAR .1. CAR FIRE EXPERIMENTS

Three full-scale fire experiments on passenger cars are described. The cars, manufactured in the late 1970s, were equipped as in practice with oil, petrol and ordinary passenger cabin materials. The experiments were performed indoors under a hood which collected the combustion products. The cars were ignited either from the passenger cabin or beneath the engine with a heptane tray. Rate of heat release by means of oxygen consumption calorimetry, mass change and rate of mass change, heat flux, CO and CO2 production rate, smoke production rate, gas temperatures above the car and temperatures inside the car were determined as a function of time.