The fire point, or combustion point, of a
fuel
A fuel is any material that can be made to react with other substances so that it releases energy as thermal energy or to be used for work (physics), work. The concept was originally applied solely to those materials capable of releasing chem ...
is the lowest temperature at which the liquid fuel will continue to burn for at least five seconds after ignition by an open flame of standard dimension. At the
flash point
The flash point of a material is the "lowest liquid temperature at which, under certain standardized conditions, a liquid gives off vapours in a quantity such as to be capable of forming an ignitable vapour/air mixture".
The flash point is somet ...
, a lower temperature, a substance will ignite briefly, but vapour might not be produced at a rate to sustain the fire. Most tables of material properties will only list material flash points. In general, the fire point can be assumed to be about 10 °C higher than the flash point,
[ although this is no substitute for testing if the fire point is ]safety critical
A safety-critical system or life-critical system is a system whose failure or malfunction may result in one (or more) of the following outcomes:
* death or serious injury to people
* loss or severe damage to equipment/property
* environmental h ...
.[
Testing of the fire point is done by open cup apparatus.]
ASTM.org
See also
* Autoignition temperature
The autoignition temperature or self-ignition temperature, often called spontaneous ignition temperature or minimum ignition temperature (or shortly ignition temperature) and formerly also known as kindling point, of a substance is the lowest tem ...
* Flash point
The flash point of a material is the "lowest liquid temperature at which, under certain standardized conditions, a liquid gives off vapours in a quantity such as to be capable of forming an ignitable vapour/air mixture".
The flash point is somet ...
Notes
Thermodynamics
Fuels
Chemical properties
Fire
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