摘要

Temporary structures called shamiana/pandal are extensively used in India and they are assembled by fixing cotton or polyester fabric, or tarpaulin on a steel pipe/bamboo frame and there have been several instances of fires resulting in fatalities. Experiments were performed to study the burning of a small vertical panel of paper, a cellulosic material. The set-up comprises a 640 mm square aluminum frame which has two vertical strips to which the strips are clamped horizontally. The set-up was placed inside a fire test chamber. In the first set of experiments individual paper strips were ignited at the bottom center, and flame height and time to break-up increase linearly with time. In the second set of experiments, two strips were placed vertically above one another with their horizontal edges being parallel and the bottom edge center of the lower strip was ignited. Three conditions were observed, viz., (i) jump is certain, (ii) jump is uncertain, and (iii) no jump. The flame establishes on the upper strip when temperatures exceed 350 °C over at least a 17 mm² area.