Finney Tanner J, Wilson Abigail W, Poveda Marisa L, Davis Benjamin L
MPA-11: Materials Synthesis and Integrated Devices, Materials Physics and Applications Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, United States.
ACS Omega. 2025 Mar 4;10(10):10594-10600. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.4c11238. eCollection 2025 Mar 18.
Measurement of temperature and heat transfer ahead of spreading fire is essential to developing our understanding of the mechanisms involved in fire spread and explosions. Because the temperature gradients in spreading fires are often steep and occur on short spatial and time scales, these measurements are notoriously difficult. Current techniques such as thermocouples require painstakingly careful engineering to ensure accurate results. Other approaches such as thermal cameras and Schlieren imaging require expensive, complex optical setups that are expensive, not amenable to widespread deployment, and require specialized expertise to deploy. Polydiacetylenes (PDAs), a class of color-changing polymers, were developed into dynamic temperature sensors, enabling the direct measurement of temperature gradients ahead of a spreading fire. Diacetylene (DA) precursors (polymerized to form PDAs) were synthesized to undergo visible color changes in response to well-defined temperatures ranging from ≈50 to 200 °C. PDAs were coated on flammable substrates, and their responsiveness was demonstrated with the combustion of paper, cardboard, and nitrocellulose. PDAs were found to be able to directly track temperature gradients ahead of the combustion zone with sub-millimeter and microsecond resolution. The developed sensors were demonstrated to have broad applicability due to their ease of deployment, simple readout, and low cost. Dynamic PDA sensors are particularly applicable to situations demanding high spatial and temporal resolutions, such as deflagrations (fast) or backing fires (short-range temperature gradients).
测量蔓延火灾前方的温度和热传递对于深入理解火灾蔓延和爆炸所涉及的机制至关重要。由于蔓延火灾中的温度梯度通常很陡，且发生在短的空间和时间尺度上，这些测量极具挑战性。诸如热电偶之类的现有技术需要极其精细的工程设计以确保获得准确结果。其他方法，如热成像相机和纹影成像，需要昂贵、复杂的光学装置，成本高昂，不适合广泛部署，并且需要专业知识才能进行部署。聚二乙炔（PDA），一类变色聚合物，被开发成动态温度传感器，能够直接测量蔓延火灾前方的温度梯度。合成了二乙炔（DA）前体（聚合形成PDA），使其在约50至200°C的明确温度范围内发生可见颜色变化。将PDA涂覆在易燃基材上，并通过纸张、纸板和硝化纤维素的燃烧展示了它们的响应能力。发现PDA能够以亚毫米和微秒分辨率直接跟踪燃烧区前方的温度梯度。所开发的传感器因其易于部署、读数简单和成本低而被证明具有广泛的适用性。动态PDA传感器特别适用于要求高空间和时间分辨率的情况，如爆燃（快速）或反向火灾（短程温度梯度）。
