Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
SUMMARY HOWARD W EMMONS Harvard University Trymg to summanze such an excellent set of papers which already have been very brief summaries of an enormous background of work is not somethmg that one can do very effectively except with a clear understandmg of the purpose of that summary. The purpose of this meetmg is to answer a certam very difficult question which, m spite of all the complexities that were discussed today, we have most successfully avoided. Namely, if you have N dollars, how many of them do you give to a chemist? This, it seems to me, is ultunately what we are trymg to get out of this meetmg. I don't blame the previous speakers for avoidmg this question. In fact, I would rather hke to duck it myself, but m view of the fact that the Fu-e Research Com- mittee's job IS to come up with a suggested answer, I thmk I shouldn't duck it. To answer this question certam subjective information has to be added to what we have heard already. A very qmck overall summary as I heard it today is that chemistry does mdeed play a significant and vital role m our ultimate real understandmg of the igmtion process, the smoke and toxicity problem, certainly the mhibition problem, and m the question of extinguishment. For the steady bummg part of the fire, chemistry probably never will say very much of practical importance because of the fact that the fire is dynamically controlled by vanous dynamic factors, the chemistry bemg fast enough to be considered infinitely fast for practical purposes. Now, if we take a look at how important chemistry really is, we have to note that at the high temperature oxidation level that we are concerned with m fire, all we need to do is to extend Dr. Emhorn's presentation a httle bit and observe that rf we really do get an mhibitor that prevents those reactions completely, the problem is gone I don't have to worry about all of the vanous aspects of the admmistration of the fire services, and the economic factors, and the labor prob- lems, and the operations research, and the vanous miscellaneous chemical prob- lems hke the thermodynamic data and the detailed kmetics, of the aerodynamic considerations, the heat transfer, the heat conduction, and all the rest. They all go away. When you have somethmg that will really kiU the problem completely, how could you possibly put your money anywhere else? If you find the perfect inhibitor the fire problem is gone. If, m the not too distant future, you thmk there is any prospect of findmg that particular magic X that makes the problem go away, your money should be used to search for X . I did not hear as I hstened to the speakers today, and I do not beheve from my own background that that particular magic X exists. Research m the detaded chemistry of mhibitors, m fact, may or may not get us anythmg. I do not know. I t may well be that we already know all of the best inhibitors that exist, but per- haps we do not. We do need basic chemical research, therefore, to understand what these inhibitors are domg so that we can answer the question, "Do any better mhibitors exist than are already known?" 268
ABSTRACTS AND R E V I E W S ' 269 There are very important basic chenucal questions in fires. However, that is not enough information to decide the issue of where to put our research money Before decidmg where to put our research money, we should not only answer the question, "Is chemistry important and exactly what is the detaded chemistry of this process?" but, should first answer the question, "What good will it do us if we understand them?" Fire chemical processes go on the same way whether or not we imderstand them. And if I do imderstand them, can I cope with the problem any better? First, then, we ought to take a look at this last question and m order to do so, I think we have to break the issues down a httle bit further because when I say chemistry, exactly what am I talkmg about. After all, I can say all fire is chem- istry and therefore if you work m fire research, you are a chemist. No, that is not what we are here for today. We have to break it down more. I am gomg to break fire chemistry down mto certam pieces in a very crude quahtative fashion which wdl help us decide where to put our research money. I am gomg to talk about chemistry first at the overall thermodynamic level. That is level number one; at an overall kmetic level, level two; and at a detailed atomic mechamsm level, level three. These three levels of chemical knowledge are differently needed m different aspects of the practical fire problem. We do not know at what level the chemistry of any particular nameable fire problem is important. Certainly, the overall thermodynamics is unportant m the steady bummg fire, even though dynamics control all the detailed rate processes. We still need the overall thermodynamics m the igmtion, m the suppression, and m the inhibition area. How much chemistry do we need? Do I have to know how the electron wiggles? Or is some overall picture of the kmetics sufficient? We do not know the answer to that question. And as always therefore, if we are gomg to do research (research means lookmg into the unknown), there is no guaranteed way by which we can say, "Ah, there is the problem I ought to work on. There is where I ought to put my money." Smce the answers are unknown to all of the various problems that are now open, there is no way m which anybody can arrive at a number which he can defend agamst those who have a different pomt of view. And so the best I can do is to give you my pomt of view as to how I summarize this story today; the chemical needs for research, compared with the total fire problem needs for research, as I see it. In the first place, I mentioned a few moments ago admmistration, economic factors, labor relations, operations research, physical phenomena, chemical phe- nomena, the parts that make up the fire problem. The scientific and technological research area is, m my thinkmg, something hke 10 percent to 20 percent of that total problem. The social and humanistic parts of our problem ultimately need most of the money. However, these problems cannot be solved without an adequate technological base. I t seems to me m view of our major ignorance m very im- portant scientific and techmcal areas, that 10 to 20 percent put on those parts of the fire problem at a national level, is somethmg like a sensible level at the present time. Our firemen fnends and people m other areas will very likely challenge my number as too big. However, they generally do not reahze how abysmal our present scientific knowledge is compared to what needs to be and can rather easily be known. My appraisal is 10 to 20 percent for science and technology of fire at the present time. The earher speakers have mdicated the part that the chemistry is gomg to play,
270 FIRE RESEARCH and I agree that today we did hear important reasons why ignition and extinguish- ment and other aspects of the fire raise very important chemical questions. That still does not really get at the question of where we should put our money because we have yet to answer the second question, "What do we thmk our chances are of domg somethmg about i t ' " I f you thmk that the probabihty of gettmg some- thmg useful out of a given piece of research is near zero, then near zero is the amount of effort you should put mto that part as compared to somethmg else that would have a more immediate and greater payoff. In order to discuss this, I thmk that we have to look for the long-term answer and the short-term answer These are not necessarily the same answer And as a matter of fact, one's division of research effort would be expected to vary as we make progress with various parts And so, let me try to look at i t m this fashion. Research m the chemical area, payoff, long-term, short-term fires. A study of the detailed chemical mechanisms, how important is it? Long-term, i t is certainly very important both from the philosophical, aesthetic pomt of view and from a practical pomt of view. My answer to "research support" is yes, some Smce i t is just as likely that m the long term all of these httle details are really "httle details" and do not really determme any of the practical fire processes, I camiot recommend large support. Even the inhibition process may come out as I unagmed above, namely, that we already know the best inhibitors So, for long-term chemical re- search support, some; short-term, none Now, obviously "none" with that kmd of finality is not right, but I thmk that is the first approximation. Second, I will consider the need to know the overall kinetic mechanisms. They may have real detail significance m igmtion and extmgmshment problems and are very necessary for development of, for example, flammabihty ratmgs which do not vary from test to test as so often they do at present Short-term research on overall effective chemical kmetic rates should receive some support. I have to put the support on the low side because I do not beheve it very likely that a significant improvement m our procedures and techmques wall come out of a given effort put mto this area as compared to the benefits attamed by the same amount of effort m other areas which have been clearly neglected, are clearly growmg at an enormous rate, and clearly have great prospect for practical results. I , personally, rate these other things the dynamics of fire, as of the moment, as of rather more importance than an overall imderstandmg of the kmetic mech- anism. Thus overall chemical kmetic studies deserve some support on the short term and these will go over to some support of the study of detailed kmetics m the long term. Third, overall thermodynamics, m the long term, must be supported. For the short term, you probably expect me to recommend support also However I am gomg to say no support And I will tell you why. I think we already probably know all of the thermodynamic data that we really need. Now agam, that is not a hard and fast rule. There are some thmgs that we really do need to know m the area of basic thermodynamic data with the chemical processes of fire m order to do our combustion correctly. But the majonty of that data is already available. I t IS necessary for us to do as Dr Stull has done with certain reactions, make use of i t . I t IS there and goodness knows we have not used i t the way i t should be used. But do we need a lot more? Probably a httle more, but I thmk not much. So for thermodynamic data for the long term, some support; for the short term, none. So where should we put our money? Well, I kind of think that of the 10 percent
ABSTRACTS AND REVIEWS 271 or 20 percent for fire science and technology we, in the long run, are going to have to invest a fau- amount in the chemical area. Perhaps as much as 15 percent to 25 percent of the fire science pie. Maybe that is not enough, maybe it is too much, only the future can decide. In the short term we need some support or we have not got any long-term work. For the actual needs m the short term, very httle support can be justified but if we do not get started, we are never gomg to have any long-term answers. And so maybe as much as 5 percent of the fire science portion. These chemical problems of fire, as noted m the precedmg papers, are almost umversally terribly difficult. They are tough. And I beheve these should be ap- proached as an aerodynamicist would approach the turbulence problem. Turbulent flow is tembly unportant in the fire area also. Why do we not do a lot of basic turbulence research? I do not thmk any turbulence research is justified as a part of fire research. This is not because it is not important, but because no one has a really breakthrough idea of what to do. Such ideas are awfully few and far between in the area of turbulence research and m Iisteiung to the discussion this mommg I see that the same is true of the detailed chemical kmetics. I f we have to wait twenty years for the determmation of a hundred of the thousand or so important reactions m the two percent precision category, only a very small but contmuous support is justified. Let me comment on the way fixe research should be done. Let us consider ig- mtion research, or flammabihty research. We need to tackle the whole problem m a way that has some real prospects for gettmg unmediate answers to the question of how easily this material will igmte m this room with aU the synergistic effects present. Walter Berl considered a room that was utterly hopeless. He put every- thmg m his room that he could thmk of. But i t was typical of the rooms that we use and, unless we can define a test for flammabihty that is correct m this room as we sit here now, i t is a fake. In fact, almost 100 percent of our tests are partially fakes because of the fact that the various tests devised by equally competent people give contradictory results. And so long as we get contradictory results, we have not simulated what we are really trymg to test In order to find what test is really sigmficant we have to have a research approach which contains team work, and that team must have m it a first-rate experimental physicist, an apphed math- ematician, and a first-rate chemist. The experimentahst must mdeed be expert in the aerodynamics and the heat transfer areas, not atomic physics of high energy particles. He must be good in classical physics which are the key ones to the fire problem. The apphed mathematician must know the most modem analysis techniques and computational techmques. He must be mterested m the physical answer to the relevant physical problems of fire and not concerned exclusively with the techmques themselves. He must work with the experimentahst m trymg to understand the data by settmg up the basic laws as we kaow them and calculatmg what the answer should be. He must compare the computed and measured results and then return to the experimentalist to unprove the agreement. I t is only by thus working to- gether that the basic mechamsms can be understood. Where does the chemist come m? The chemist is needed here, too. We have to develop overall reaction mechanisms at the essential level to imderstand what is gomg on. What is the essential level? I do not know. I f we leave the chemistry to an aerodynamicist, we are going to use some very crude chemical mechanisms.
272 FIHE BESEAECH We Will have one or two simple one-step reactions. The chemist's help is essential, not to come up with a detailed knowledge of every reaction step but rather with the right mix of controUmg steps. What we have to do is mcrease step-by-step m complexity until we find out what degree of complexity is absolutely essential to understand igmtion and other fire problems. And so the first-rate chemist will know all the detail background that is cur- rently avadable, but will, hke the physicist and his high-speed particles, set the detail aside for the moment and work with the other two fellows as a team of three trymg to brmg m only what is absolutely essential and only mcreasmg the complexity of the chemical understandmg as i t is essential to the understandmg of the fire problem. None of our three-member team may put in everythmg he can think of. I f he does he is not gomg to help us much. The analyst, if he does it , is gomg to pose a problem too difficult for the computmg machme. I t is not nearly big enough. The experimentahst, if he does it , is gomg to measure so many thmgs that we are not gomg to untangle very much. And the chemist must be vnJhng to do the same thmg
