ACS South Jersey Local Section Meeting
October 1999 Dinner Meeting
Renault Winery
Egg Harbor City, NJ
Dr. Richard E. Lyon
U.S. Department of Transportation
Federal Aviation Administration
THE CHEMISTRY OF POLYMER FLAMMABILITY
Tuesday, October 19, 1999
The Speaker:
Dr. Richard E. Lyon is a Materials Research Engineer and Program Manager of Fire Research at the FAAÕs W.J. Hughes Technical Center, Atlantic City, New Jersey. REL is responsible for planning, executing, and managing the long-range research program in fire resistant aircraft cabin materials which began in 1995. His current research involves development of new polymers, material models for fire response, and improved methods and analyses for fire hazard assessment. REL is currently chairman of the 40-agency, Interagency Working Group on Fire and Materials.
Dr. Lyon joined FAA in 1993 after leaving the University of California's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), in Livermore, California, where he worked for 8 years as a Materials Research Engineer in the Chemistry and Materials Science Department. Projects at LLNL included laser-damage resistant optical polymers (R&D 100 Award), structural ablative materials, adhesion science, ballistic properties of composites, and process cure monitoring of thermoset polymers. He has filed or received several patents and has published over 30 articles and chapters on the physics, chemistry, and mechanics of polymers and their composites.
He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry, and Masters and Doctoral degrees in Polymer Science & Engineering all from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
The Talk:
A self-consistent materials chemistry of flaming combustion is derived from solid state kinetics and thermodynamics using a realistic physical model of polymer burning. The rates of solid state (pyrolysis) and gas phase (combustion) reactions are assumed to be rapid in comparison to the rate of heat transfer at the burning surface. Coupling of thermal diffusion and chemical kinetics occurs in the surface pyrolysis zone where the rate of temperature rise for steady burning becomes the characteristic heating rate for thermal decomposition. Detailed thermal degradation chemistry is foregone in favor of a transient mass balance on the polymer, fuel gases, and solid char in the anaerobic pyrolysis zone. Closed-form, time-independent solutions for the scalar mass loss rate and char yield are obtained from the degradation kinetics which, in combination with the solid state transport and thermodynamic properties calculated from the polymer chemical structure, provide the scaling relationship between material properties and steady burning rate. The critical condition for a non-zero burning rate in the absence of an external heat flux (flammability) can then be expressed in terms of material properties.
The September meeting will be held at Renault Winery (72 N. Bremen Ave. Egg Harbor City):
From the West: Go to Egg Harbor City (Atlantic City Expressway Exit 17 and then North on NJ Route 50 to US Route 30). Go East on the White Horse Pike (US Route 30) about 1 mile to Bremen Avenue. Turn North and Follow Bremen Avenue about 2.5 miles to the Winery.
From the East: Take the White Horse Pike (US Route 30) West toward Egg Harbor City. Turn North onto Bremen Avenue (about 1 mile before Egg Harbor City center) and proceed about 2.5 miles to the Winery.
For more detailed information, please call the winery directly at (856) 956-2111.
Social Hour &Wine Bar: 6:00 PM
Dinner: 7:00 PM
Talk: 8:00 PM
Dinner choices: Herb Crusted Breast of Chicken (Stuffed with mushrooms Spinach Artichoke Hearts); Filet of Salmon (Stuffed with Spinach and Lump Crabmeat) and Vegetarian Plate.
Cost: $20 members and guests, $10 students
$4 for Wine Bar
It is very importnat you make your reservation by Friday, Oct. 8
Cathy Yang (856)-256-4500,ex3569
Jim Gleeson (856) 224-2947
Bob Newland (856) 256-4855