TY - GEN

T1 - Microgravity Flammability Experiments for Spacecraft Fire Safety

A1 - Legros,Guillaume

A1 - Minster,Olivier

A1 - Tóth,Balazs

A1 - Fernandez-Pello,A. Carlos

A1 - T’ien,James S.

A1 - Torero,Jose L.

A1 - Cowlard,Adam J.

A1 - Eigenbrod,Christian

A1 - Smirnov,Nickolay

A1 - Fujita,Osamu

A1 - Rouvreau,Sebastien

A1 - Jomaas,Grunde

AU - Legros,Guillaume

AU - Minster,Olivier

AU - Tóth,Balazs

AU - Fernandez-Pello,A. Carlos

AU - T’ien,James S.

AU - Torero,Jose L.

AU - Cowlard,Adam J.

AU - Eigenbrod,Christian

AU - Smirnov,Nickolay

AU - Fujita,Osamu

AU - Rouvreau,Sebastien

AU - Jomaas,Grunde

PY - 2012

Y1 - 2012

N2 - As fire behaviour in manned spacecraft still remains poorly understood, an international topical team has been created to design a validation experiment that has an unprecedented large scale for a microgravity flammability experiment. While the validation experiment is being designed for a re-supply vehicle like the ATV or Orbital’s Cygnus, a series of supporting experiments are being planned and conducted by the team members. In order to answer the appropriate scientific and engineering problems relevant for spacecraft fire safety, a canonical scenario that can improve the understanding of flame spread, and thus also the modeling thereof, in realistic conditions is described. Some of the parameters governing the flame spread are also identified and their scaling against the dimensions of the test specimen is briefly questioned. Then several of the current and scheduled efforts are presented in terms of their relevance for the flame spread problem. Further, it is explained how the results can be combined to enhance the understanding of fire spread in the real scale configuration and thus improve the fire safety onboard spacecrafts. The results and particularly the ones from the large scale validation experiment are crucial to the ultimate goal of the project, which is the development of predictive tools that should be capable of selecting an adaptive response to fire spread in any manned spacecraft.

AB - As fire behaviour in manned spacecraft still remains poorly understood, an international topical team has been created to design a validation experiment that has an unprecedented large scale for a microgravity flammability experiment. While the validation experiment is being designed for a re-supply vehicle like the ATV or Orbital’s Cygnus, a series of supporting experiments are being planned and conducted by the team members. In order to answer the appropriate scientific and engineering problems relevant for spacecraft fire safety, a canonical scenario that can improve the understanding of flame spread, and thus also the modeling thereof, in realistic conditions is described. Some of the parameters governing the flame spread are also identified and their scaling against the dimensions of the test specimen is briefly questioned. Then several of the current and scheduled efforts are presented in terms of their relevance for the flame spread problem. Further, it is explained how the results can be combined to enhance the understanding of fire spread in the real scale configuration and thus improve the fire safety onboard spacecrafts. The results and particularly the ones from the large scale validation experiment are crucial to the ultimate goal of the project, which is the development of predictive tools that should be capable of selecting an adaptive response to fire spread in any manned spacecraft.

BT - Proceedings of the 63rd International Astronautical Congress

T2 - Proceedings of the 63rd International Astronautical Congress

ER -