Measurement of the thermal parameters of composite materials during fire tests with quantitative infrared imaging Articles uri icon

publication date

  • January 2018

start page

  • 313

end page

  • 333

issue

  • 1

volume

  • 54

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

  • 0015-2684

Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)

  • 1572-8099

abstract

  • A fire resistance test, as performed on plates of carbon fibre reinforced polymer composites, is conceptually analogous to a step heating, and can be modelled by the one-dimensional heat equation. Thus modelled, the plate operates as a linear system with an impulse response function that relates temperatures at the front face (the one exposed to fire) and the rear face, and depends on two parameters, namely thermal diffusivity (a) and effective Biot number (Bi). Taking as input the time evolution of temperature at the front face, the output of the model for each (a, Bi) couple is a predicted temperature for the rear side of the plate. At each point of the plate, a and Bi can be retrieved by fitting the predicted temperature to the experimental one. These parameters are good quantitative indicators of thermal damage, and therefore its measurement has a particular interest to understand degradation processes associated with fire action.

keywords

  • infrared imaging; thermography; fire; fire test; thermal diffusivity; biot number; composite materials