Fire severity prediction analysis of a traditional libya house roofing materials: A case study

Abstract

Most recorded Libya house fire accidents are associated with the types of roofing materials used in the building of the traditional Libya houses, mainly from the date palm trees (DPT) parts. This research focuses on the fire characteristic properties of DPT building material based on four conducted laboratory experiments on the preprocessed known mass of leaves, trunk, and root samples collected across 40, 41, 80, and 81 years old trees, across different geographical location in Libya. The characterisation analyses result of calorific energy contribution of 4107.2 cal/gram from older DPT trunk samples, percentage weight loss reduction of -2.2 mg / ᵒC, at the highest temperature range of 727- 899 ᵒC from thermogravimetric test. The highest diffusivity rate of 0.138 mm2 /s also occurs at 99–100 ᵒC on the oldest trunk sample, and fire propagation index of 0.0463 was recorded with index performance of 32.3 ᵒC. These result analyses indicated high heat conductivity at a lower temperature, fast heat rate of propagation to support fire accident when in contact with fire flame, and high calorific load value for fire growth in traditional Libya houses. Useful information on rate of heat conductivity, fire propagation properties, and thermal behaviours of DPT for fire impact assessment analyses prediction in traditional Libya houses.

Keywords

• date palm tree
• fire safety
• fire propagation
• calorimetric