Recent Decisions

ALIENS--Executive Suspension of Alien\u27s Deportable Status Final as Congressional Veto Mechanism violates Constitutional Doctrine of Separation of Powers Kevin P. Hishta --------------------------- Sovereign Immunity--Iranian Immunity from Pre-Judgment Attachments Terminated under International Emergency Economic Powers Act J. Clifton Cox --------------------------- Sovereign Immunity--Government Shipping Company of the People\u27s Republic of China is an Agency or Instrumentality for the Purposes of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 Shari D. Olenick ---------------------------- State Corporate Income Tax--Foreign Source Dividends Included in State Taxation Base Under Unitary Business Enterprise Test Stephen B. Hatcher ----------------------------- Trade Regulation--Use of Registered Mail by Federal Trade Commission to Subpoena Foreign Citizens Abroad Violates International Law Ann M. Bel

Ignition Performance of New and Used Motor Vehicle Upholstery Fabrics

This paper examines the standards for fire safety in transport systems and in particular the test method for the flammability of materials within passenger compartments of motor vehicles. The paper compares data from ignition tests conducted in the Cone Calorimeter and the FIST apparatus with tests conducted using the FMVSS 302 horizontal flame spread apparatus. Ten materials were selected as representative of those used as seat coverings of private and commercial passenger vehicles. The time to ignition of new and used materials subject to exposure heat fluxes between 20 kW/m2 and 40 kW/m2 was measured. The results from the ignition tests were analyzed using thermally thick and thermally thin theoretical models. The critical heat flux for sustained piloted ignition was determined from the time to ignition data using the thermally thin approach. Derived ignition temperatures from both the thermally thick and thermally thin methods were compared with measurements using a thermocouple attached to the back surface of materials in selected tests. The flame spread rates in the FMVSS 302 apparatus were determined and a comparison was made between the performance of the materials in the flame spread apparatus, the Cone Calorimeter and the FIST. The results suggests that a critical heat flux criterion could be used to provide an equivalent pass/fail performance requirement to that specified by the horizontal flame spread test although further testing is needed to support this

Determination of the Burning Characteristics of a Slick of Oil on Water

Research journal paper published in Spill Science and Technology Bulletin 2003The burning rate of a slick of oil on a water bed is characterized by three distinct processes, ignition, flame spread and burning rate. Although all three processes are important, ignition and burning rate are critical. The former, because it defines the potential to burn and the latter because of the inherent possibility of boilover. Burning rate is calculated by a simple expression derived from a onedimensional heat conduction equation. Heat feedback from the flame to the surface is assumed to be a constant fraction of the total energy released by the combustion reaction. The constant fraction (c) is named the burning efficiency and represents an important tool in assessing the potential of in-situ burning as a counter-measure to an oil-spill. By matching the characteristic thermal penetration length scale for the fuel/water system and an equivalent single layer system, a combined thermal diffusivity can be calculated and used to obtain an analytical solution for the burning rate. Theoretical expressions were correlated with crude oil and heating oil, for a number of pool diameters and initial fuel layer thickness. Experiments were also conducted with emulsified and weathered crude oil. The simple analytical expression describes well the effects of pool diameter and initial fuel layer thickness permitting a better observation of the effects of weathering, emulsification and net heat feedback to the fuel surface. Experiments showed that only a small fraction of the heat released by the flame is retained by the fuel layer and water bed (of the order of 1%). Ignition has been studied to provide a tool that will serve to assess a fuels ease to ignite under conditions that are representative of oil spills. Two different techniques are used, piloted ignition when the fuel is exposed to a radiant heat flux and flash point as measured by the ASTM D56 Tag Closed Cup Test. Two different crude oils were used for these experiments, ANS and Cook Inlet. Crude oils were tested in their natural state and at different levels of weathering, showing that piloted ignition and flash point are strong functions of weathering level

Burning Rate of Liquid Fuel on Carpet (Porous Media)

Research paper published in the journal Fire Technology 2004The occurrence of a liquid fuel burning on carpet has been involved in many incendiary and accidental fires. While the research on a liquid fuel fire on carpet is still limited, much work on porous media has been performed using sand or glass beads soaked with liquid fuel. In this study, a heat and mass transfer theory was first developed to analyze the burning process of liquid on carpet, and then several small-scale tests were performed to validate the theory. This analysis is valid for pool fires intermediate in size (5-20 cm. in diameter). The experimental apparatus consisted of a circular pan (105mm) and a load cell. Varying amounts of fuels (heptane, kerosene and methanol) were spilled onto the carpet, which was allowed to burn in a quiescent environment. It was found that due to the different controlling mechanisms, the liquid burning rate could be less or more than that of a similarly spilled free-burning pool fire. For the worst-case scenario in fires, the maximum enhancement of the burning rate due to the porous media is predictable through the physical properties of the fuel. This analysis is valid for both combustion and evaporation. Several similar results in the scientific literature are analyzed to further describe the trend. This work explains the role of carpet in liquid pool fires and also helps to explain special risks related to the presence of carpet involved in arsons and will be useful in reconstruction of the early development of an incendiary or accidental fire

The Behavior of Liquid Fuel on Carpet (Porous Media): A Case for the Inclusion of Science in Fire Investigation

Flammable liquid fuel spills on flooring including carpets and other porous materials have long been a subject of interest to the fire investigation community. Early understanding in this community about the indicators of a liquid fuel fire, such as holes in flooring material or heavy burning in this area, have been shown to be incomplete. Research from the past two decades have enabled fire investigators to identify burn patterns from liquid fuel pours, estimate the evaporation and mass burning rates of the liquid fuel on the carpet, and be able to test the carpet forensically to determine if the fuel was present during the fire or was introduced by post-fire contamination. These science-based tools have enabled fire investigators to tackle a seemingly simple fire problem and have aided in fire origin and cause determination. The authors believe that the type of work that has been undertaken on liquid fuels on carpet and flooring should be conducted for many other problems in fire investigation to give fire investigators as many scientific tools as possible. These tools should be taught in the framework of education instead of as simple rule of thumb training. As this is done, the fire investigation industry will advance as a whole

A smoke detector activation algorithm for large eddy simulation fire modeling

This study chronicles the development and integration of a smoke detector activation algorithm (known as the SDAA) that describes the response time of a smoke detector into a large eddy simulation (LES) fire model [Roby RJ, Olenick SM, Zhang W, Carpenter DJ, Klassen MS, Torero JL. Smoke detector activation algorithm version 1 technical reference guide. NISTIR Report; 2006, in press]. Although the SDAA could be used with any CFD smoke movement model, the results here address specifically its application to the fire dynamics simulator (FDS). The fire model predicts the smoke concentration and velocity adjacent to the detector while an algorithm based on characteristic velocity-based lag times describes the transport of smoke into the sensing chamber of the smoke detector. The experimental data from a multi-room compartment fire were used for comparison and a series of benchmark studies provide a mechanism to establish the sensitivity of the model to the different input parameters. The SDAA was found to be very accurate in determining detector activation times for both high- and low-velocity smoke flows