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Title: Validation of Heat Transfer Thermal Decomposition and Container Pressurization of Polyurethane Foam.

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1158664· OSTI ID:1158664

Polymer foam encapsulants provide mechanical, electrical, and thermal isolation in engineered systems. In fire environments, gas pressure from thermal decomposition of polymers can cause mechanical failure of sealed systems. In this work, a detailed uncertainty quantification study of PMDI-based polyurethane foam is presented to assess the validity of the computational model. Both experimental measurement uncertainty and model prediction uncertainty are examined and compared. Both the mean value method and Latin hypercube sampling approach are used to propagate the uncertainty through the model. In addition to comparing computational and experimental results, the importance of each input parameter on the simulation result is also investigated. These results show that further development in the physics model of the foam and appropriate associated material testing are necessary to improve model accuracy.

Research Organization:
Sandia National Lab. (SNL-CA), Livermore, CA (United States); Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
DOE Contract Number:
AC04-94AL85000
OSTI ID:
1158664
Report Number(s):
SAND2014-17867; 537630
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English