Multiphysics modelling of stone wool fire resistance test

In fire resistance tests, stone wool’s organic matter undergoes exothermic oxidative reactions similar to smoldering but sustained by external heat, causing mass transfer in the structure. The previous modelling attempts, lacking the mass transfer physics, fall short in predicting the temperature of high density and high organic content samples. To fill this gap in the fire engineering modelling capability, we include mass transfer in our calculation, and validate the model using experimental fire resistance data. The results show that the thermal effects of the oxidative degradation can be predicted by introducing the simplified diffusion processes. The oxygen transfer and exothermic reactions depend upon the amount of organic content. A gas flow barrier on the cold side (sandwich) can effectively reduce the peak temperature of the high organic content-stone wools.