Estimation of pyrolysis model parameters for solid materials using thermogravimetric data

Abstract

Determination of the material parameters is one of the key challenges of numerical fire simulation attempting to predict, rather than prescribe the heat release rate. In this work, we use common fire simulation software and genetic algorithms to estimate the kinetic reaction parameters for wood components, birch wood, PVC and black PMMA. Parameters are estimated by modelling thermogravimetric experiments and minimizing the error between the experimental and numerical results. The implementation and choice of the parameters for the genetic algorithm as well as the scheme to describe wood pyrolysis are discussed.