Heat transfer model of fire protection fiberglass thermal barrier coated with thin aluminium layer

Fiberglass thin blankets with an aluminium coating are often used for fire protection due to their capacity to withstand extreme incident radiant and convective heat fluxes. This article develops a one-dimensional heat transfer model for predicting the temperature distribution for this coated thermal barrier considering the radiant heat flux from the flame front [O(10 1 ) kW / m 2 ] and convective heat fluxes from the heated combustion gases on the front side, and a convective heat transfer on the opposite side. The mathematical model developed uses a Pade Approximant to convert the analytical solution from the Laplace to the Fourier domain. And this approximation is validated numerically through finite differences, and experimentally with an appropriate laboratory experimental setup. The accuracy of the results obtained show a good agreement in both validation schemes. Namely, concerning the laboratory experiments, the heat transfer model captured the barrier's thermal behaviour with maximum absolute deviations of 14% on the heat source side of the thermal barrier and 8.7% on the opposite side. The imperfect thermal contact in the experimental setup was discussed as a possible source of error. (c) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This article develops a one-dimensional heat transfer model to predict the temperature distribution of an aluminium-coated thermal barrier, considering radiant and convective heat fluxes. The model is validated numerically and experimentally.