Combustion behavior and fire security of storage grains before and after mildew

Abstract

Storage grains before and after mildew are first subjected to thermal radiation experiments under different heat radiant flux conditions using a cone calorimeter. The chemical constitution, morphology, operational taxonomic unit analysis, and the degree of mildew of four disaggregated storage grains under the same proceeding conditions are studied. Normal grain and mildewed grain are significantly different in terms of the mounts and species of mold. The peak heat release rate and the total heat release of mildewed grains are higher than that of normal grains. Under different heat radiations, the fire performance index of mildewed grains tends to be lower than that of normal samples, while the fire growth index value is just the opposite. The higher the heat radiation, the less the effect of mold on the fire performance index difference. Besides, the reciprocal of the square root time of sample ignition has a linear relationship with the heat flux.