The influence of different external heating ways on pyrolysis and spontaneous ignition of some woods

A considerable amount of research has been conducted on the pyrolysis, ignition of wood under constant heat flux. However, the heat flux accepted by materials during the fire is increasing with time. This paper describes the theoretical and experimental investigation on pyrolysis and spontaneous ignition of wood exposed to heat fluxes linearly increasing with time. A one-dimensional model that describes the pyrolysis of wood subject to a linearly increasing heat flux is presented. Experiments are conducted for different wood species subjected to several increasing rates of heat fluxes. Some special characteristics of wood pyrolysis and spontaneous ignition have been proposed based on those investigations.