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Results from a full-scale vehicle burn test involving a sport utility vehicle illustrated how fire spread throughout the vehicle, how temperature distributions changed over time, and how arcing-through-char does not always occur in a vehicle fire. The fire was initiated on a grommet on the rear portion of the passenger’s side of the engine compartment. Once the temperature near the origin reached approximately 600°C, the rate of fire spread rapidly increased. Over the next 3.5 minutes, the fire spread to all locations within the engine compartment and both front tires. Although certain circuits within the vehicle’s electrical system were energized for the duration of the fire, with the battery located at the rear of the passenger compartment and the ignition switch in the “off” position, no evidence of beaded copper was observed on any of the conductors located in the engine compartment for this test. However, numerous fuses were found to have activated after the fire.

Data from a full-scale vehicle burn test involving a cargo van illustrated how temperature distributions changed over time, the manner in which fire spread, and how patterns produced correlated to the origin of the fire. The fire was initiated on the driver’s side of the engine compartment and initially grew slowly with the high-temperature zone near the area of origin. Once the peak temperature reached about 540°C, the rate of flame spread increased such that over the next 4 minutes the fire spread across the entire engine compartment. In the next stage of the fire, which occurred shortly after full involvement of the engine compartment, the fire spread into the passenger compartment. A strong vertical temperature gradient developed from the ceiling to the floor and as the passenger compartment became fully involved, the passenger compartment temperatures both increased and became more uniform.

Two full-scale burn tests involving identical side-by-side all-terrain vehicles were conducted to evaluate fire spread, changes in temperature distributions over time, and how burn patterns correlated to the known point of origin of the fires. The fires were initiated by igniting body panels at opposite corners of the vehicles such that in one test the fire propagated downwind and, in the other, it propagated upwind. In both tests, drop-down from the body panels onto the tires resulted in ignition of the tires. This was an important feature of the mechanism of fire spread. Once the tires began to burn, a transition occurred and the rate of fire spread to the remaining portion of the vehicle increased. Although the time between fire initiation and this transition was significantly different in the two tests, the time to spread and to consume the remaining combustibles within each vehicle was relatively consistent, independent of wind direction.

Hot surface ignition of combustible material is a known cause of vehicle fires. Although the detailed mechanisms of hot surface ignition are highly complex, the surface temperature is known to play a crucial role in this process. There has been limited previous work in the literature on this topic, much of which has focused on engine or exhaust system surface temperatures of the most common types of passenger vehicles. Also, much of this work was done in an unrepeatable manner and suffered from measurement technique induced errors. The focus of the present work is on repeatable and low measurement technique induced error temperature measurements of exhaust system surface temperatures of rear- and mid-engine sports cars. Temperature measurements were made at several points along the exhaust systems of vehicles both with and without turbo chargers on a 5-mile oval track.

Two full-scale burn tests were conducted to evaluate the propagation of an engine compartment fire into the passenger compartment of consumer vehicles. In particular, the effect of penetrations in the bulkhead separating the engine compartment from the passenger compartment was examined. The first burn test involved two vehicles of the same year, make, and model. One of the vehicles was left in the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) configuration. The other vehicle was modified by welding steel plates over the pass-through locations in the bulkhead between the engine and passenger compartments. After the fire was initiated in the engine compartment and had reached the onset of flashover, the heat and flames from this fire began to effect the passenger compartment. At about this same time, flames extending from the engine compartment around the hood began impinging directly on the outer face of the windshield.