ISIT: Integrated System for Ignition Tests

The concepts of flammability, combustibility, oxygen index, etc. for materials of construction (building, transportation, etc.) have been standardized, as have the procedures and instruments for measurement of these parameters. However for materials that cannot be reduced to pre-established shapes and sizes, such as plant material (leaves, branches, litter, etc.), similarly clear definitions have not been formulated and, thus, procedures for the measurement of these parameters have not been standardized. The present work proposes a device, designed and built by us, that makes it possible to carry out flammability tests on samples of plant material under controlled and reproducible conditions in a wide range of combinations of physical parameters. The ISIT (Integrated System for Ignition Test) is essentially composed of three parts: - a cylindrical crater where the plant sample to be ignited is placed - an epiradiator shaped as a pyramidal trunk with octagonal base centered over the crater and moveable in a vertical direction with a rack device - a computerized system to monitor the thermodynamic parameters and to elaborate the relative data. The heating devices are managed by three independent PID controls whose set-point values can be imposed by the operator by way of a specific routine. Through this routine it is possible to set the air speed and electrical power applied to the trigger device, in addition to various measurement modalities. During measurements, data acquisition occurs four times per second and data from both the multi-point radiometer and other sensors are recorded on a disk with the same frequency. Other characterizing aspects of the ISIT are: -a system which is completely managed electrically, while others trigger combustion of the samples with a small gas flame; -all the thermodynamic parameters are recorded numerically as a function of time; in addition, images in both infrared and visible wavelengths can be recorded during the burning process from trigger to incineration; -the topical moments of burning: trigger and pre-ignition, ignition, combustion with and without flame, extinction and others at the discretion of the user, can be highlighted and temporally marked on recorded images.