Fire Field Model Incorporating Pyrolysis for Burning of Flame-Retardant Polystyrene in Enclosures

Polymeric materials have been widely used in our daily applications. In building fires, many of such materials are prompt to ignition and burning resulting in actively involvement in flame spread and combustion generating enormous amounts of heat and smoke which impair escapes of building occupants and rescue operations of fire brigades causing injuries and fatalities. Flame-retardant polymeric materials are often deployed to alleviating hazards. Traditional halogen-based flame-retardants were proven to be harmful to environment as such strict abatement or prohibitions of their applications are imposed in many countries and areas. Recently, advancements have been made to using nano-phosphorus based flame-retardants for polymers such as polystyrene which is one of the most commonly used polymers in our daily life. Research studies revealed that such flame-retardant technique improves the fire retardancy, environmental-friendliness; promotes char formation; enhances mechanical and anesthetic properties of polystyrene. In this research, state-of-the-art, comprehensive and robust fire model based on computational fluid dynamics techniques will be developed for flame-retarded polystyrene to further understand and predict their fire characteristics and performances for full-scale applications in buildings and assist performance-based fire engineering designs. The established fire model and the associated methodology can be a generalized framework for fire behaviors and performances of other flame-retardant polymeric materials.