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Clothes Dryer Fire

APTECH was asked to determine the cause of a fire in a residential clothes dryer. The appliance was a gas dryer with the lint filter in the door. The dryer was essentially brand-new, and had only been used for several weeks. We learned from the homeowner that this had been a smoldering type of fire, confined to the drum, which did not spread to the laundry room. Our inspection determined that the fire origin was in a chamber that formerly contained the lint filter. The filter itself had been entirely consumed in the fire. The dryer vent was clean, so overheating due to a blocked vent was ruled out. Spontaneous combustion of lint in the filter has been ruled out by laboratory tests by the industry. Another possibility was the presence of combustible liquids (e.g., vegetable oil) in the fabric load that could have ignited by spontaneous combustion. The drum was rotating just before the smoldering started. This ruled out spontaneous combustion, which requires that the load be quiescent in the drum for many minutes. The clothing remnants in the drum were insufficient to be sent to a chemical analysis lab for liquids analysis. In any case, they appeared to be clothing, not rags. The owner assured us that the load being dried that day consisted only of clothing, sheets and bath towels, with no vegetable oil or flammable liquid content. Our investigation concluded with the testing of the control thermostat and the high-limit switches.

Satish Almaula		Plant failure and root cause analysis; process and design engineering analysis; process technology development and testing; plant engineering, operations, maintenance and safety management; plant and process control system management.

Richard Schreiber, P.E.		Gas appliances, boiler and machinery failure analysis, fire and explosion origin/cause.

Kimble Clark, Ph.D.		Failure analysis, heat transfer & thermodynamics, process plant equipment failures & explosions, fuel science, combustion, industrial fires and explosions.