A more realistic fire sample that can generate smouldering and flames has been used by Boeing for heat and smoke sensor development and by Airbus for testing A380 fire detectors.
The sample is a 100 x 100 x 10mm (4 x 4 x 0.4in) block of plastic beads, partially fused together with a nicrome wire running through it. The plastics in the pellet are commonly found in aircraft cargo compartments.
Smouldering effects are achieved by sending a current down the nicrome, while a flaming sample involves pouring 2mm of gasoline-like heptane over the block and lighting that.
"There have been numerous occasions over the last couple of years when we have used this for cargo compartment detector tests [at Boeing and Airbus]," says David Blake, a US Federal Aviation Administration fire safety researcher based at the administration's William J Hughes Technical Center in Atlantic City.
Blake and his colleague Richard Lyon patented the test block in the USA earlier this year.
Source: Flight International
