Effects of Ignition Location and Energy on the Fire Growth Characteristics of Corrugated Cardboard Boxes

Corrugated cardboard boxes, which are widely used in warehouses, exhibit fire growth characteristics that are highly sensitive to ignition conditions, leading to uncertainty in fire hazard assessments. Such uncertainty is largely governed by ignition variables that are difficult to control in real fire scenarios, such as the ignition location and energy. Accordingly, this study experimentally investigated the effects of the ignition location and energy using cubic corrugated cardboard boxes. Substantial differences in the incubation time, fire growth rate, and peak heat release rate were observed depending on the ignition location under identical ignition energy conditions, and the influence of ignition location was found to be more dominant than that of ignition energy. These results demonstrate that the selection of the ignition location is a critical parameter for interpreting fire growth characteristics and maximum fire size in fire experiments involving corrugated cardboard boxes.