Combustion Reactivity of Rice Husk: An Experimental and Numerical Investigation

The combustion reactivity of rice husk from New South Wales, Australia was measured by heating cubical baskets in controlled environment and monitoring the centre temperature. Frank-Kamenetskii’s ignition theory was used to calculate the activation energy. Results agreed well with tests on other cellulosic materials, Numerical simulations of temperature changes were carried out, using a special technique to deal with non-linearities in the heat conduction equation. The numerical results indicate that the time factor should be taken into account when evaluating self-combustion risks.