Pyrolysis, Ignition and Combustion of Solid Fuels

Dear Colleagues,

Pyrolysis, ignition, combustion, and fire spread of/over solid fuels have invariably been crucial topics in the fire safety research community in the past few decades, as solid materials, including coal, biomass, and plastics, extensively used to underpin our modern society, often serve as the major fuels for unprecedented fires. Pyrolysis and ignition of solids upon heating determine the possibility of fire occurrence, intensity of resultant combustion, and fire spread. Feedback energy released from combustion, in turn, impacts the pyrolysis rate and ignition of unburnt fuels. Key processes related to solid fires, encompassing pyrolysis, combustion chemistry, heat and mass transfer, thermodynamics, ignition, combustion characteristics, and feedback heat flux, are of particular importance for fire modeling, fire risk assessment, and the development of cost-effective fire prevention/suppression techniques. Although previous experimental methodologies and analytical and numerical models exhibited great success in solving traditional solid fire issues, some newly emerged aspects, such as new composite materials, unprecedented wildland fires, lithium-ion/solid-state batteries, and artificial intelligence (AI), challenge these existing approaches greatly, which also provides new vitality for this field.

This Special Issue aims to present the recent state-of-the-art fundamental research on pyrolysis, ignition, combustion, and fire spread of/over solid fuels as well as the related fire prevention/suppression techniques.

Original research articles and reviews are welcome, and potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

1. Pyrolysis kientics, homogenous and heterogenous combustion dynamics;
2. Experiments and modeling of ignition, fire spread, and extinction;
3. Application of artificial-intelligence-based methods in solid fuel fires;
4. Smoldering and flaming combustion and the smoldering-to-flaming transition;
5. Battery, electric vehicle (EV), and energy storage system fires;
6. Case studies in large-scale/extreme fire catastrophes;
7. Solid fires in unconventional conditions;
8. Fire prevention and suppression techniques.

Prof. Dr. Junhui Gong
Prof. Dr. Xiaoyu Ju
Dr. Zeyang Song
Dr. Yang Zhou
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Fire is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• pyrolysis kinetics and thermodynamics
• combustion and fire dynamics
• ignition, fire spread, and extinction
• artificial intelligence (AI)
• wildland and forest fire
• battery fire
• large-scale fire
• unconventional fire
• fire prevention