Abstract
The combustion intensity of hydraulic fluids and mineral oil, methanol, ethanol, and heptane, ejected vertically up ward through a pressure-jet hollow cone nozzle and stabilized by a ring burner, has been characterized in terms of heat release rates. A relationship has been established between the chemical heat release rate, fluid exit velocity, and chemical heat of combustion. Mineral oil, along with some organic esters, has the highest combustion intensity as indicated by heat release rate, followed by esters (organic and phosphates), heptane, water-in-oil emulsion, ethanol, methanol, and polyglycol-in-water. Variations in combustion intensities in hydraulic fluids are found to be due to variations in the chemical structures and additives.
The efficiency of combustion is found to be sensitive to fluid exit velocity.
The radiative fraction of the efficiency of combustion for phosphate esters is found to be the highest (0.38–0.40), followed by mineral oil (0.36), organic esters (0.28–0.35), water-in-oil emulsion (0.27–0.28), and polyglycol-in-water (0.12–0.25). The radiative fraction of the efficiency of combustion for ethanol and heptane spray fires is found to be less than for the pool fires. For methanol spray fire, radiative fraction of the efficiency of combustion is found to be about the same as for the pool fire.
The visible flame length of hydraulic fluid spray fires varies with the chemical heat release rate to the power of 0.6 for both hollow and solid cone nozzles.
Key words
Hydraulic fluids spray combustion fire flamePreview
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