FIR 127 - Fire Behavior and Combustion

Upon completion of this course, the student will be able to: 

• Identify the fundamental theories of fire behavior and combustion. 

• Differentiate the various types of extinguishing agents. 

Student Learning Outcomes: 

• Explain the importance of measurement in understanding fire behavior. 

• Name the basic SI units of measurement and convert between valuse in SI units and English units. 

• Understand the precision of a measurement and the reduced precision used in estimations. 

• Explain the differences between mass and weight and among energy, heat, and enthalpy. 

• List the chemical elements that are especially important in fires. 

• Describe atomic mass and dimension. 

• Describe molecules, compounds, free radicals, and ions. 

• Recognize the bonding features of an organic fuel from its name. 

• Find further information about atomic and molecular properties. 

• Name the three basic states of matter found in the material world and explain how they are characterized. 

• Describe the phase changes among these states and the change in enthalpy associated with each. 

• Write and use the ideal gas law. 

• Balance a chemical equation for the combustion of a material during a fire. 

• Estimate the heat released during burning based on the balanced chemical equations using the mass of oxygen consumed. 

• Understand the meaning of fuel-lean, stoichiometric, and fuel-rich combustion. 

• Explain why the outcome of a combustion reaction is determined by thermodynamics, while the rate of the reaction is determined by chemical kinetics. 

• Describe ideal and realistic flame temperatures. 

• Describe the basic laws of motion and gravitation. 

• Calculate pressures in a standpipe and a stairwell. 

• Calculate the velocity of a falling object and the time it takes to reach the ground. 

• Describe potential and kinetic energy. 

• Describe the effects of fluid viscosity and bouyancy on fire flows. 

• Name and explain the three modes of heat transfer. 

• Explain why radiative heat transfer in fires is especially important. 

• Explain the difference between an intensive property and an extensive property of a material. 

• Calculate the heating rate of an object due to heat conduction and radiation. 

• Describe the difference between thermally thin and thermally thick materials. 

• Describe the structural hazards that can result from loss of fire resistance. 

• Calculate the burn hazards to people from exposure to convective and radiative heat. 

• Describe how the U.S. fire incidence database enables development of a national profile of fires and fire losses. 

• Define the process of combustion. 

• Explain flammability, in terms of both fire properties and practical application. 

• Explain the nonflaming and flaming stages of fire. 

• Discuss the fire tetrahedron and explain how it is a focus for a unified view of fire initiations, growth, and termination. 

• Discuss the terms fire consequences, hazard, and risk. 

• Describe the categorization of flames. 

• Characterize laminar and turbulent flames. 

• Define deflagration and detonation, and explain the difference between the two. 

• Discuss flammability limits and burning velocity, as well as their relationship to fire hazard. 

• Understand the difference between piloted ignition and autoignition. 

• Explain the potential hazard from a gas leak. 

• Explain the importance of chain branching in combustion chemistry. 

• Describe the flash point, fire point, and autoignition temperature of a flammable liquid. 

• List the three classes of flammable liquids, based on flash point and potential ambient temperatures. 

• Define the linear burning rate of a pool of liquid and explain why it varies with the diameter of the pool. 

• Describe the physical considerations that affect the rate of flame spread of flammable liquids. 

• Explain boilover. 

• Explain a boiling liquid/expanding vapor explosion (BLEVE). 

• List the three significant differences between the burning of a solid fuel and the burning of gaseous and liquid fuels. 

• Describe the thermal and chemical processes that result in the ignition and burning of a solid. 

• Describe how char formation and melting occur and how they affect the burning rate. 

• List the types of combustible solids. 

• Describe the types of polymers and explain how they gasify. 

• Describe at least four classes of mechanisms by which fire retardant aditives act to modify the ignition and burning of solids. 

• Discuss the use of calorimetry to measure the heat-release rates of materials and products. 

• Describe the two main types of smole aerosols and explain why they are important in fires. 

• Explain how soot forms. 

• Describe the two principal methods for quantifying the aerosol content of smoke produced in an experimental fire. 

• Describe the smoke-point height method for estimating the relative sooting tendency of a gaseous fuel. 

• List some relationships between fuel chemistry and sooting tendency. 

• Estimate the mass of burned fuel that can lead to loss of visibility due to smoke obscuration. 

• List the principal combustion products formed in fires. 

• Explain the principle of operation for ionization smoke alarms and photoelectric smoke alarms, and identify the differences in what they detect. 

• List the hazards to people and property from a fire. 

• Explain the following tpes of harm from a fire: acute effects, postexposure effects, and chronic effects. 

• List the most important toxic gases in smoke. 

• Explain the differences between narcotic gases and irritant gases. 

• Explain the concept of fractional effective dose. 

• Explain the underlying principle of Haber’s rule. 

• Explain the concept of limiting hazard and its role in fire protection. 

• Describe the three zones of the plume of a fire burning in the open and calculate the air entrainment into the flame and the height of the luminous flame. 

• List three reasons why the nature of the ceiling jet is important. 

• Calculate the mass outflow from a room in which a steady-state fire is burning. 

• Estimate the minimum rate of heat release that leads a room to flashover. 

• List nine reasons why calculating the smoke flow through most buildings requires a computational model. 

• Distinguish among fire extinguishment, fire control, and fire inerting. 

• List the four classes of fires, as used in the United States. 

• Describe the different ways in which water suppresses a fire, depending on its method of delivery and the geometry of the fire, and list the types of fires on which water should not be applied. 

• Describe the roles of suppression-enhancing additives to water. 

• List the types of nonaqueous fire suppressants. 

• Understand why the use of halon fire extinguishers has been curtailed. 

• Explain how powdered fire extinguishants are effective on a fire. 

• Explain the value in using computer fire modeling. 

• Describe the difference between a deterministic and a probabilistic fire model. 

• Describe the characteristics of both zone and field models. 

• Describe the difference between retrospective and prospective use of a fire model. 

• Explain model variation, model verification, and model accuracy. 

• Explain the limitations of computer fire models.