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Fire toxicity
Edited by A A Stec and T R Hull, University of Central Lancashire, UK
- investigates the controversial subject of toxic effluents as the cause of the majority of fire deaths and injuries
- describes the different types of toxic effluents and the specific fires that they produce, their physiological effects and methods for generation
- provides an overview of national and international fire safety regulations including current and proposed regulations such as a standardized framework for prediction of fire gas toxicity
Toxic fire effluents are responsible for the majority of fire deaths, and an increasing large majority of fire injuries, driven by the widespread and increasing use of synthetic polymers. Fire safety has focused on preventing ignition and reducing flame spread through reducing the rate of heat release, while neglecting the important issue of fire toxicity. This is the first reference work on fire toxicity and the only scientific publication on the subject in the last 15 years.
Assessment of toxic effects of fires is increasingly being recognised as a key factor in the assessment of fire hazards. This book raises important issues including the types of toxic effluents that different fires produce, their physiological effects, methods for generation and assessment of fire toxicity, current and proposed regulations and approaches to modelling the toxic impact of fires.
The contributors to Fire toxicity represent an international team of the leading experts in each aspect of this challenging and important field. This book provides an important reference work for professionals in the fire community, including fire fighters, fire investigators, regulators, fire safety engineers, and formulators of fire-safe materials. It will also prove invaluable to researchers in academia and industry.
ISBN 1 84569 502 X
ISBN-13: 978 1 84569 502 6
March 2010
728 pages 234 x 156mm hardback
£170.00 / US$290.00 / €210.00
Usually dispatched within 24 hours
About the editors
Dr. Stec and Prof. Hull have worked together on fire toxicity for the last 6 years, currently in the Centre for Fire and Hazard Science at University of Central Lancashire, UK.
Anna Stec is a lecturer in Fire Chemistry and Toxicology. Her work has focused on quantification of toxic hazards in fires, understanding the factors that affect fire gas toxicity, and the relationship between the physiological effects of the concentration and dose of different toxicants. She has conducted detailed comparisons on the yields of fire gases and other combustion products using a selection of different small-scale fire models in order to predict the effects of fire exposures to humans. Dr Stec has been designated as the UK’s Principal Expert on fire chemistry, and an active participant at the ISO TC 92 Fire threat to people and environment meetings.
Richard Hull is a Professor of Chemistry and Fire Science. His work has focused on fire retardant mechanisms, fire effluent toxicity and fire science. With another contributor, Prof David Purser, he has been pivotal in the development of the steady state tube furnace as the first internationally recognised standard for the assessment of fire gas toxicity (ISO TS 19700); as one of the only methods capable of replicating real fire conditions on a bench-scale, this has led to its growing acceptance, particularly for performance-based fire assessment.
Titles which may also be of interest:
Advances in fire retardant materials
Flammability testing of materials used in construction, transport and mining
Fire retardant materials
Fire retardancy of polymers
Contents
PART 1 INTRODUCTION
PART 2 HARMFUL EFFECTS OF FIRE EFFLUENTS
PART 3 BIOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT OF FIRE TOXICITY
PART 4 TOXICITY ASSESSMENT USING CHEMICAL ANALYSIS
PART 5 NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL FIRE SAFETY REGULATIONS
PART 6 NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF FIRES AND THEIR HAZARDS
PART 1 INTRODUCTION
Introduction to fire toxicity
T R Hull and A A Stec, University of Central Lancashire, UK
- Fire toxicity
- Hazards to life from fire
- Important toxicants
- Quantification of toxic hazards from fire
- Bench-scale generation of fire effluents
- Fire death and injury statistics
- References
Fire scenarios and combustion conditions
D A Purser, A A Stec and T R Hull, University of Central Lancashire, UK
- Introduction
- Idealised fire growth and typical toxic products
- Studies on methane flames
- The equivalence ratio
- Types of fire and stages of growth
- Combustion conditions in full-scale compartment fires
- Conclusions
- References
PART 2 HARMFUL EFFECTS OF FIRE EFFLUENTS
Hazards from smoke and irritants
D A Purser, University of Central Lancashire, UK
- Introduction
- Hazard assessment issues in relation to smoke and irritants
- Effects of smoke obscuration and irritancy on escape and tenability
- Why irritants are an important aspect of fire hazard
- Range of irritant effects and importance of concentration and exposure dose
- Concentration and dose-response relationships
- Similarities and differences between animal species in relation to effects of irritants
- Potency ranges for sensory and lung irritancy
- Setting tenability limits for concentration and dose-related irritant effects
- ASET FED calculation models for time to incapacitation and lethal dose of irritants
- Calculating effects of sensory irritancy on walking speed
- Conclusions
- References
- Appendix A: Comparison of FEC, Cn•t and RD models for calculating time to and severity of sensory irritancy in human fire victims during fires
- Appendix B: Setting tenability limits for irritants
Asphyxiant components of fire effluents
D A Purser, University of Central Lancashire, UK
- Introduction
- Asphyxia, hypoxia and asphyxiant fire gases
- Dose-effect relationships and uptake rate calculation methods for individual gases and interactions
- Carbon monoxide
- Hydrogen cyanide
- Low oxygen hypoxia
- Interactions between the effects of different asphyxiant gases
- Conclusions
- References
Effects of fire effluents on fire victims
R Shepherd, Royal Liverpool Hospital, UK
- Introduction
- Legal aspects of the investigation of sudden or unnatural deaths
- Death investigation
- The pathology of heat trauma
- Examination of the victims
- Fire effluents
- Conclusions
- References
PART 3 BIOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT OF FIRE TOXICITY
Experimental methods in combustion toxicology
A A Stec, University of Central Lancashire, UK
- Introduction
- Principles of toxicology and toxicity
- Descriptive animal toxicology tests
- Standardisation and validation of alternative methods
- Conclusions
- References
Animal exposure studies
J Pauluhn, Bayer Schering Pharma, Germany
- Introduction
- Principles of combustion inhalation toxicology
- Bioassays
- Exposure systems for the study of inhalation toxicity
- Principles of hazard identification and risk characterization
- Inhalation toxicity tests with fire effluents: end points
- Non-lethal end points
- Acute inhalation toxicity of combustion products: examples
- Conclusions
- Future trends
- References
Application of human animal exposure studies to human fire safety
D A Purser, University of Central Lancashire, UK
- Introduction
- The development of toxic hazards in fires
- Toxicity of individual fire gases and toxic potency of different materials
- Fractional effective dose methodology for hazard analysis
- Similarities and differences between animal models and humans
- Identification of toxic species in fire effluents and assessment of contributions to toxic hazards
- Conclusions
- References
In vitro biological toxicity assessments for fire combustion products
F Lestari, Universitas Indonesia, Indonesia, A J Hayes and A R Green, University of New South Wales, Australia
- Introduction
- Combustion furnace
- In vitro toxicology
- Future trends
- References
A combined fire smoke and lung model test equipment
T Hertzberg and P Blomqvist, SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden and R Nosratabadi, Linköping University Hospital, Sweden
- Introduction
- Results
- Discussion
- Conclusions
- References
PART 4 TOXICITY ASSESSMENT USING CHEMICAL ANALYSIS
Sampling and measurement of toxic fire effluents
P Fardell, formerly BRE (fire and security), UK and E Guillaume, LNE, France
- Introduction
- Sampling fire effluents: general principles
- Practical arrangements for a typical sampling line for fire effluent gases and vapours
- Analysis of gaseous fire effluents: general principles
- Analysis of fire effluents: summary of principle methods available
- Sampling and analysis of aerosols
- Lower limits of detection, quantification, accuracy and precision
- References
- Appendix A: Summary of sampling and analytical methods for fire gases and vapours
- Appendix B: Table of analytical methods for aerosols
Bench-scale generation of fire effluents
T R Hull, University of Central Lancashire, UK
- Introduction
- Bench-scale generation of fire effluents: general requirements
- Classification of test methods
- Flow-through methods
- Overall comparisons between bench and large scales
- Conclusions
- References
Large-scale generation and characterisation of fire effluents
P Blomqvist and M Simonson-McNamee, SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden, Sweden
- Introduction
- Fire characterisation
- Sampling and analysis of fire gas from large scale tests
- Large-scale testing
- Specially designed tests
- References
Effects of the material and fire conditions on toxic product yields
D A Purser, A A Stec and T R Hull, University of Central Lancashire, UK
- Introduction
- Toxic product yields for common materials and fire conditions
- Generalised mechanism of polymer decomposition
- Material composition and the effect of ventilation condition on toxic product yields
- Effects of temperature on product yields
- Effects of lowered oxygen concentration
- Conclusions
- References
Estimation of toxicity during burning of common materials
A A Stec, University of Central Lancashire, UK
- Introduction
- Fractional efective dse (FED)
- Fire toxicity of common polymers with fire condition
- Summary of FED for various polymers
- FED fire retarded materials
- FED Nanocomposite materials: impact of fire retardants and nanofillers on toxicity
- Fractional effective dose (FED) of whole cables
- References
PART 5 NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL FIRE SAFETY REGULATIONS
Prescriptive regulations and tests considering the toxicity of fire effluents
J Troitzsch, Fire and Environment Protection Service FEPS, Germany
- Introduction
- Mandatory toxicity requirements, classification and tests for products used in transportation and building
- Transportation
- Building
- Future trends
- References
An international standardised framework for prediction of fire gas toxicity
T R Hull and A A Stec, University of Central Lancashire, UK
- Introduction
- The workings of the international organisation for standardisation (ISO) technical committee on fire safety (TC 92)
- Fire threat to people and the environment TC92 SC3
- Overview of assessment of hazards to life
- Current international organisation for standardisation (ISO) standards covering fire threat to people and the environment
- Proposed international organisation for standardisation (ISO) standards for fire toxicity
- Future standard development in fire toxicity and fire safety engineering: “the matrix”
- Proposed standards on the harmful effects of fire effluents on the environment
- References
PART 6 NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF FIRES AND THEIR HAZARDS
Computer simulation of fire hazards and evacuation
K Grewolls, Ingenieurbuero fuer Brandschutz Grewolls, Germany
- Numerical fire analyses: history, motivation, types of application
- Types of fire simulation models
- Evacuation simulation
- References
Toxic hazard calculation models for use with fire effluent data
D A Purser, University of Central Lancashire, UK
- Introduction
- A comprehensive hazard calculation model for time and dose to incapacitation and lethality
- Fractional effective dose (FED) methodology for hazard analysis
- Overall hazard analysis for a fire
- Application to escape calculations
- Conclusions
- References
Modelling fire growth and toxic gas formation
S Welch, S C Paul and J L Torero, The University of Edinburgh, UK
- Introduction
- Fundamentals of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) fire modelling
- Combustion and pyrolysis models
- Prediction of products of combustion and toxic species
- Applications
- Conclusions
- Acknowledgements
- Nomenclature
- References