Effect of admixture of solid inertant on fire hazard of dust layers oriented at varying degrees of inclination

Unlike metallic dust layers, the layer flammability levels (LFL) of non-metallic dust layers exhibit a wide range from Class 1 (No self-sustained combustion) to Class 6 (explosive combustion). However, determinations of layer flammability have not considered the effect of inclination angle, thereby potentially underestimating fire hazard of combustible dust layers in many industrial situations. In this research, inclined dust layers showed greater fire hazard than did horizontally oriented dust layers. For example, LFL of wood dust jumped from class 3 to class 5 when layers were positioned with an incline. Flame spread rate of PMMA dust layers increased from 1.8 to 3.6 mm/s when the angle of inclination increased from 0 to 40°. Even small amounts of solid inertant significantly decreased surface layer fires. The required amount of inertant to completely inert layer fires was far less than that for smoldering layer fires or dust explosions.     

氯化钠/纳米疏水二氧化硅超细干粉制备及灭火性能研究

选用氯化钠为基体制备金属火灾超细干粉灭火剂。应用反溶剂法对其改性,使纳米疏水二氧化硅吸附在氯化钠晶体表面,其中分散剂为PEG-1000。结果表明,纳米疏水二氧化硅的添加有利于细化氯化钠颗粒,但过量的添加会起反作用,最佳用量为3 wt%左右,平均粒径为2.18μm。镁片灭火实验证明超细复合干粉的灭火性能明显好于传统氯化钠灭火剂(商用D类灭火剂),纳米疏水二氧化硅最佳添加量为3 wt%,此时灭火时间仅需传统灭火剂的一半。最后利用FDS5.0模拟干粉颗粒与燃烧火焰作用过程,模拟结果表明干粉覆盖对火焰具有一定的抑制效果,并分析了复合干粉灭火机理。     

基于层次分析法的热塑性聚氨酯及其纳米复合材料火灾危险性综合评价

聚合物的火灾危险性与热、烟、毒的释放密切相关,但采用不同指标对材料的评价结果不一致。以纳米级蒙脱土(MMT)、氢氧化铝(ATH)和聚磷酸铵(APP)为添加剂的热塑性聚氨酯(TPU)纳米复合材料为研究对象,选取其在静态管式炉、稳态管式炉和锥形量热仪中的相关实验数据,以HCN总浓度作为特殊毒性危害指标,CO和CO_2浓度为一般毒性危害指标,以热释放速率峰值、平均热释放速率、总热释放量为热危害指标,以产烟速率峰值、生烟总量为烟危害指标。进一步细分了火灾烟气中不同毒性气体对于火灾风险的影响,并运用层次分析法计算指标权重,综合评价了热塑性聚氨酯及其复合材料的火灾危险性。结果表明,当添加量为6 wt%聚磷酸铵、3 wt%氢氧化铝与3 wt%蒙脱土时,此时复合材料的火灾危险最低,证明了综合热、烟、毒三个层次来降低聚合物材料火灾危险性是可行的。     

空气幕对城际铁路地下车站火灾烟气控制数值分析

为将空气幕作为城际铁路地下车站控烟措施提供理论依据,进而为地下车站防灾控烟设计提供新思路,以某典型城际铁路地下车站岛式站台层为依托,采用火灾动力学三维模拟软件FDS建立全尺寸火灾模型,对比单吹式、吹吸式空气幕布置于站台与轨行区间时楼梯及站台处温度及可见度分布规律,并分别对单吹式、吹吸式空气幕的射流风速、射流角度进行了参数优化研究。结果表明:单吹式、吹吸式空气幕均可保证火灾下楼梯区域可见度和温度的安全性要求;单吹式在射流风速为12 m/s且射流角度为10°时,吹吸式在射流风速为8 m/s时,防烟效果良好且趋于稳定;采用单吹式的最小站台危险区域较吹吸式长15 m,建议在城际铁路地下车站中选用吹吸式空气幕。     

Renewable biomass gel reinforced core-shell dry water material as novel fire extinguishing agent

This work explores the feasibility of using chitosan (CS)-sodium alginate (SA) crosslinking gel to reinforce dry water (DW) composites. The stability and fire extinguishing efficiency of the DW powder are investigated. Compared to ordinary DW material, water loss rate of the modified DW composite is decreased, and its pressure resistance and stability are significantly increased. Moreover, it possesses higher fire extinguishing efficiency than conventional dry powder. Fire extinguishing mechanism and gel formation mechanism are proposed. The improvement in stability has great significance for the storage and transportation of DW materials. These results demonstrate the ability to create a fully green and renewable crosslinking gel capable of endowing high stability to DW material. This work provides a novel solution to improve the stability of DW materials, which will have great application prospect in fire suppression of some flammable hazardous chemicals.     

Power-law behaviour and parametric models for the size-distribution of forest fires

This paper examines the distribution of areas burned in forest fires. Empirical size distributions, derived from extensive fire records, for six regions in North America are presented. While they show some commonalities, it appears that a simple power-law distribution of sizes, as has been suggested by some authors, is too simple to describe the distributions over their full range. A stochastic model for the spread and extinguishment of fires is used to examine conditions for power-law behaviour and deviations from it. The concept of the extinguishment growth rate ratio (EGRR) is developed. A null model with constant EGRR leads to a power-law distribution, but this does not appear to hold empirically for the data sets examined. Some alternative parametric forms for the size distribution are presented, with a four-parameter ‘competing hazards’ model providing the overall best fit.     

Spatio-temporal use of the urban habitat by feral pigeons (Columba livia )

Feral pigeons are descendants of wild rock pigeons that have adapted to the urban habitat. They have partially conserved the foraging behaviour of their wild ancestors (flights to agricultural areas) but have also developed new habits. Previous studies on the foraging strategies of feral pigeons have given various results, e.g. maximum distances reached by the pigeons (measured in a straight line from the resting places) differed between 0.3–0.5 km and 18–25 km. This study focuses on the spatio-temporal activity of feral pigeons in the urban habitat. We equipped 80 free-living feral pigeons from Basel, Switzerland with GPS receivers. We found three different foraging strategies for pigeons in Basel: (1) in the streets, squares and parks near the home loft, (2) in agricultural areas surrounding the city, (3) on docks and railway lines in harbours. The maximum distance reached by a pigeon was 5.29 km. More than 32% of the pigeons remained within 0.3 km of the home lofts and only 7.5% flew distances of more than 2 km. Females covered significantly longer distances than males, preferring to fly to more abundant and predictable food sources. Temporal activity patterns showed to be influenced by sex, breeding state and season. In contrast to wild rock pigeons and to feral pigeons in other cities, pigeons in Basel showed a clear bimodal activity pattern for breeding birds only. The differences between our results and those of other studies seem to be partly method-dependent, as the GPS-technique allows to record the pigeons’ localisations continuously in contrast to other methods. Other differences might be due to different kinds of food supply in the various cities. Our study shows that feral pigeons have individual foraging strategies and are flexible enough to adapt to different urban environments.Electronic supplementary material Supplementary material is available for this article at     

Green leaf volatiles enhance sex attractant pheromone of the tobacco budworm,Heliothis virescens (Lep.: Noctuidae)

Summary Components of the green leaf volatile complex (Z-3-hexenyl acetate andE-2-hexenyl acetate) were shown to enhance responses of tobacco budworm,Heliothis virescens, males to the sex attractant pheromone of conspecific females in the field. The results are discussed with regard to green leaf volatiles which enhance the attractant pheromone of a cohabiting species, and serve as attractants of a parasitoid of conspecific larvae.     

Effects of different levels of song overlapping on singing behaviour in male territorial nightingales (Luscinia megarhynchos)

In signalling interactions, animals can directly address information to a specific individual. Vocal overlapping is such a signalling strategy used in songbirds, anurans, and insects. In songbirds, numerous studies using high rates of song overlap to simulate an escalating situation have shown that song overlapping is perceived as a threatening signal by interacting and by listening (eavesdropping) individuals, indicating a high social relevance of song overlapping. Here we present a playback experiment on nocturnally singing male territorial nightingales (Luscinia megarhynchos). Using three different rates of song overlap (1, 25, or 50%), we tested whether or not lower levels of song overlapping act as a signal of aggressive intent and if birds would increase the intensity of their response with increasing level of song overlapping. Subjects did not vary song duration in response to the different playback treatments but increasingly interrupted their singing with increasing overlap by the three playback treatments. The effects persisted even after the playback ceased to overlap and switched to an alternating singing mode. These results expand on previous studies by showing that song overlapping is interpreted as an aggressive signal even when it is used at low or moderate levels. They suggest that, within the range tested here, increasing levels of song overlapping are perceived to be increasingly aggressive.     

Collective decisions in ants when foraging under crowded conditions

In this paper we examine the effect of crowding on the selection of a path in the mass-recruiting ant Lasius niger. In our experiment, ants had to go from their nest to a food source by crossing a diamond-shaped bridge, giving the choice between two paths. Two types of bridges were used: the first had two branches of equal length but different width while the second had two branches of different length and width. Experiments at high traffic volume always ended up with the selection of the wider branch, even if it was longer. This result shows that overcrowding on the narrow branch plays an essential role in the mechanism underlying the choice of route in ants. A mathematical model was developed to evaluate the importance of two mechanisms that could account for this result. The first is based on the difference in travel duration between the two paths. The second is based on the repulsive interactions between workers making head-on encounters. The model shows that travel duration per se is not sufficient to explain path choice. Rather, it is the interplay between trail following behaviour and repulsive interactions that allows ants to choose the path that minimizes their travel time. When choosing a path ants thus prefer to trade time against energy. Our results demonstrate that any environmental constraint that alters the dynamics of trail recruitment can lead to the emergence of adaptive foraging decisions without any explicit coding of information by the foragers at the individual level.