Melting temps of various metals.
Aluminum Bronze 1190 - 1215 f
Cast Iron, gray 2150 - 2360f
Gold 1945 f
Plutonium 1180f
Stages of Burning Wood.
• The wood is heated to evaporate and drive off moisture. This heat does not warm the stove or room.
• The wood starts to break down chemically at 500° F and volatile matter is vaporized.
• These vapors contain between 50 and 60 percent of the heat value of the wood.
• At 1100° F these vapors burn. This high temperature must be maintained for maximum efficiency in combustion.
• Following the release of volatile gases, the remaining material is charcoal, which burns at temperatures exceeding 1100° F.
Temperature distribution inside a burning cigarette
R. R. BAKER
Group Research and Development Centre, British-American Tobacco Co. Ltd, Regent's Park Road, Southampton SO9 1PE
THE study reported here has been undertaken to resolve the large discrepancies between reports of the temperature distribution in the combustion coal of a cigarette. Studies using bare thermocouples (refs 1−4 and R. G. Hook, paper presented at Twentieth Tobacco Chemists' Conference, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, November 1966) indicate that the highest temperatures occur on the central axis of the coal (the actual reported values vary considerably but are usually in the range 800−900° C during a puff, 700−800° C during the natural smoulder between puffs, and 800−850° C under steady state continuous draw conditions). Under all smoking regimes, the thermocouple-measured temperature decreases by up to 300° C along a radius from the maximum central temperature to the periphery of the coal, although one thermocouple study2 has reported the occurrence of occasional peripheral hot spots, with temperatures higher than the centre of the coal. (Ref. 2 contains a comprehensive compilation of more than forty studies of temperature measurements inside burning cigarettes prior to 1968.) In contrast, temperature measurements by X-ray observations of the melting of small metal particles placed within the cigarette5 indicate that the highest temperatures (900° C) occur at the periphery of the coal. Furthermore, measurements of the coal's surface temperature by radiation methods (ref. 5 and A. T. Lendvay, F. M. Watson III, and T. S. Laszlo, paper presented at the CORESTA/Tobacco Chemists' Joint Conference, Williamsburg, Virginia, October 1972) have recorded temperatures of about 850−920° C during a puff, 700° C (below the surface ash) during smoulder, and short-lived hot spots on the coal's surface as high as 1200° C (ref. 5).
GROSS OUT WARNING!
Human flesh requires extended exposure to 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit in order to ignite. The human body, which is 85 percent water, burns outside to inside in a rapid cycle of layer-by-layer dehydration and ignition. The heat dries out the skin; the dry skin ignites. That fire dries out the next layer of muscle and fat, which then ignites. And so on, until the internal organs are consumed. The average body gives off a modest 1,000 Btu per pound of meat (burning wood, by comparison, gives off 6,000 Btu). But an extremely obese person can run up to 17,000 Btu.
