DESIGN OF AN EXPERIMENT TO MEASURE FIRE EXPOSURE OF PACKAGES ABOARD CONTAINER CARGO SHIPS

The test described in this paper is intended to measure the typical accident environment for a radioactive materials package in a fire aboard a container cargo ship. A stack of nine used standard cargo containers will be variously loaded with empty packages, simulated packages and combustible cargo and placed over a large hydrocarbon pool fire of one hour duration. Ftre environments, both inside and outside the containers, typical of on-deck stowage will be measured as well as the potential for container-to-container fire spread. With the use of the inverse heat conduction calculations, the local heat transfer to the simulated packages can be estimated from thermocouple data. Data recorded will also provide information on fire durations in each container, fire intensity and container-to-container fire spread characteristics.