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The flame height of rectangular pool fires bounded by a sidewall with different distances and aspect ratios

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Abstract

This paper presents an investigation on the flame height of rectangular pool fires bounded by a sidewall. A series of experiments were conducted to investigate the flame height of pool fire bounded by a sidewall with different distances and aspect ratios. Four pools with identical area but different aspect ratios of 1:1, 1:2, 1:4, and 1:8 are studied. Experimental results show that flame height is strongly related to the distance between the fire source and the sidewall and the aspect ratio. The flame height increases with the decreases in the distance and the aspect ratio. A hydraulic diameter has been conducted to develop a correlation for calculating the total flame height. One more hydraulic diameter has been assumed to develop the correlation for the height of flame attached to the sidewall.

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Abbreviations

A :

The length of rectangular nozzle (m)

B :

The width of rectangular nozzle (m)

C p :

Specific heat capacity of air at constant pressure

D :

Hydraulic diameter (m)

g :

Gravitational acceleration (m s−2)

l :

Inside separation distance (m)

L f :

Total flame height (m)

L 0 :

Total flame height when l = 0 (m)

L f,0 :

Total flame height in the open space (m)

L f,b :

The flame height attached to the sidewall (m)

n :

Aspect ratio of the pool (A/B)

\(\dot{Q}\) :

Heat release rate (kW)

\(\dot{Q}_{\text{AB}}^{*}\) :

Dimensionless heat release rate

\(\dot{Q}_{\text{rec}}^{*}\) :

Dimensionless heat release rate

\(\dot{Q}_{\text{S}}^{*}\) :

Dimensionless heat release rate

S :

The distance between the sidewall and central line of the pools (m)

T ∞ :

Ambient temperature (K)

α :

Constant

β :

Constant

\(\rho_{\infty }\) :

Ambient density (kg m−3)

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Acknowledgements

The work in this study was financially supported by National Key R&D Program of China (No. 2017YFC0803300), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51408181), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No JZ2017HGTB0208), the Opening Foundation of State Key Laboratory of Fire Science, University of Science and Technology of China (No. HZ2017-KF01).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Civil Engineering, Hefei University of Technology, No. 193 Tunxi Road, Hefei, 230009, Anhui, China

    Qin Liu, Peng Wang, Xiaoping Liu & Peixiang He

  2. School of Automotive and Transportation Engineering, Hefei University of Technology, No. 193 Tunxi Road, Hefei, Anhui, 230009, China

    Changfa Tao & Shun Meng

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  1. Qin Liu
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  2. Changfa Tao
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  3. Peng Wang
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  5. Xiaoping Liu
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Correspondence to Changfa Tao or Peixiang He.

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Liu, Q., Tao, C., Wang, P. et al. The flame height of rectangular pool fires bounded by a sidewall with different distances and aspect ratios. J Therm Anal Calorim 138, 1415–1422 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10973-019-08093-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10973-019-08093-z

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