A tran sient one di men sional model has been pre sented to sim u late deg ra dation and gasi fi ca tion of poly eth yl ene, in early stage of fire growth. In the pres ent model ef fect of ox y gen on deg ra da tion and rate of poly mer gasi fi cation while the sam ple is sub jected to an ex ter nal ra di a tive heat source is numer i cally in ves ti gated. This model in cludes dif fer ent mech a nism, which affect the deg ra da tion pro cess, such as in depth ther mal ox i da tive de com po si

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... tion, in depth ab sorp tion of ra di a tion, heat trans fer, volatiles advection in solid phase and con vec tive heat trans fer on sur face. Also effects of ra di a tive pa ram e ters, due to for ma tion of char layer such as sur face re flec tivity and ab sorp tivi ty on ther mal deg ra da tion of polyethylene are inves ti gated. The re sults for 40 kW/m 2 heat source are re ported and yielded re al is tic re sults, com par ing to the pub lished ex per i men tal data. The re sults show that an in crease in ox y gen con cen tra tion leads to con sid er able increase in gasi fi ca tion rate and also leads to sharp in crease of sur face temper a ture.