Effect of moisture content and fuel type on emissions from vegetation using a steady state combustion apparatus
Priya Garg A B , Thomas Roche B , Matthew Eden C , Jacqueline Matz C , Jessica M. Oakes C , Chiara Bellini C and Michael J. Gollner
A B D
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-3371, USA.
B Department of Fire Protection Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742-3301, USA.
C Department of Bioengineering, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
D Corresponding author. Email: mgollner@berkeley.edu
International Journal of Wildland Fire 31(1) 14-23 https://doi.org/10.1071/WF20118
Submitted: 28 July 2020 Accepted: 8 September 2021 Published: 5 October 2021
Abstract
Emission measurements are available in the literature for a wide variety of field burns and laboratory experiments, although previous studies do not always isolate the effect of individual features such as fuel moisture content (FMC). This study explores the effect of FMC on gaseous and particulate emissions from flaming and smouldering combustion of four different wildland fuels found across the United States. A custom linear tube-heater apparatus was built to steadily produce emissions in different combustion modes over a wide range of FMC. Results showed that when compared with flaming combustion, smouldering combustion showed increased emissions of CO, particulate matter and unburned hydrocarbons, corroborating trends in the literature. CO and particulate matter emissions in the flaming mode were also significantly correlated with FMC, which had little influence on emissions for smouldering mode combustion, when taking into account the dry mass of fuel burned. These variations occurred for some vegetative fuel species but not others, indicating that the type of fuel plays an important role. This may be due to the chemical makeup of moist and recently live fuels, which is discussed and compared with previous measurements in the literature.
Keywords: flaming, smouldering, wildland fuel, fuel moisture content, emissions, steady state, combustion.
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