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Study on the effect of pressure on fire whirl combustion characteristics with different air-inlet widths

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Abstract

A fire whirl is a kind of spinning flow accompanied by chemical changes. It has a combustion-enhancing effect, increasing the fire’s heat release rate and may induce catastrophic consequences. However, the combustion characteristics of a fire whirl at dynamic pressure are still unknown. This experiment was conducted in a sizeable low-pressure chamber with dimensions of 3.0 m × 2.0 m × 2.0 m, in which a small-sized fire whirl was generated using a square vertical slot with variable slit width. The ambient pressure was reduced to the target pressure by the low-pressure chamber, and a dynamically pressurized environment was created by controlling the air inlet rate. This experiment investigates characteristic parameters such as combustion rate, heat radiation flux, and flame height of the fire whirl. The experimental results show that the flame height of the fire whirl with pressure changes as a result of the first increase and then maintains the same; the fire whirl has a pronounced combustion enhancement effect, and the combustion rate is about 3.5 times that of the ordinary pool fire; four walls open slit fire whirl combustion there is a “critical width,” the closer the width, the higher the mass combustion rate, the more stable the flow field, the more the ratio between the burning rate and the characteristic length of the oil basin, the more the ratio between the dimensionless number and the Grashof number is close to a linear relationship. The heat radiation flux increases with increasing pressure, and there is a linear relationship between \({\left({Q}_{r}^{\prime\prime}/{P}^{2}\right)}^{^{1}/_{4}}\) and \(\mathrm{P}^{^{-2}/_{3}}\), where \({Q^{\prime\prime}_r}\) is the flame radiation and P is the pressure.

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Funding

This study has been sponsored by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51906238 and No. 12202410), Anhui Province Outstanding Young Talents Support Program under No.gxyqZD2022058, and the Open Project Program of the State Key Laboratory of Fire Science (No. HZ2020-KF01). The authors extend their appreciation to the Deputyship for Research & Innovation, Ministry of Education in Saudi Arabia for funding this research work through the project number “IF_2020_NBU_307.” Also, this work was supported by the Science and Technology Plan Project Form of Anhui Province Housing and Urban–Rural Construction (No. 2020-SF06), the Project of Anhui Jianzhu University Talent Research Program and the Horizontal commission project (No. 2019QDZ21 and No. HYB20200068), Natural Science Foundation of Anhui Province (No. 2008085QE268), Research Project Supported by Shanxi Scholarship Council of China (No. 2022–139), Natural Science Foundation of Shanxi Province (No. 20210302123017), and Fund Program for the Scientific Activities of Selected Returned Overseas Professionals in Shanxi Province (No. 20220012). The authors gratefully acknowledge these supports.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Environment and Energy Engineering, Anhui Jianzhu University, Hefei, 230601, China

    Chao Ding, Zijian Yan, Qingyuan Lan & Yan Jiao

  2. School of Mechanical Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, 610031, China

    Jinwei Li

  3. School of Environment and Safety Engineering, North University of China, Taiyuan, 030051, China

    Que Huang & Changcheng Liu

  4. Department of Clinical Laboratory Sciences, Turabah University College, Taif University, P.O. Box 11099, Taif, 21944, Saudi Arabia

    Mohamed A. Nassan

  5. College of Materials Science and Engineering, Taiyuan University of Science and Technology, Taiyuan, 030024, China

    Mina Huang

  6. Department of Chemistry, Turabah University College, Taif University, P.O. Box 11099, Taif, 21944, Saudi Arabia

    Salah M. El-Bahy

  7. Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Arts and Science, Northern Border University, Rafha, Saudi Arabia

    Mohamed H. Helal

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  1. Chao Ding
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Correspondence to Chao Ding, Mohamed H. Helal, Yan Jiao or Changcheng Liu.

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Ding, C., Yan, Z., Lan, Q. et al. Study on the effect of pressure on fire whirl combustion characteristics with different air-inlet widths. Adv Compos Hybrid Mater 5, 2642–2650 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42114-022-00553-9

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