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Section B Fire and Explosion - A Study of Flame Spread in Engineered Cardboard Fuel Beds Part I: Correlations and Observations of Flame Spread

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Progress in Scale Modeling, Volume II

Abstract

Wind-aided laboratory fires spreading through laser-cut cardboard fuel beds were instrumented and analyzed for physical processes associated with spread. Flames in the spanwise direction appeared as a regular series of peaks and troughs that scaled directly with flame length. Flame structure in the stream-wise direction fluctuated with the forward advection of coherent parcels that originated near the rear edge of the flame zone. Thermocouples arranged longitudinally in the fuel beds revealed the frequency of temperature fluctuations decreased with flame length but increased with wind speed. The downstream extent of these fluctuations from the leading flame edge scaled with Froude number and flame zone depth. The behaviors are remarkably similar to those of boundary layers, suggesting a dominant role for buoyancy in determining wildland fire spread.

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Abbreviations

D :

Horizontal flame zone depth (m)

f :

Frequency (Hz)

g :

Acceleration of gravity (9.81 ms−2)

L :

Flame length (m)

R :

Fire spread rate (ms−1)

t :

Time (s)

U :

Horizontal wind speed (m/s)

w :

Fuel loading (kg m−2)

X :

Horizontal stream-wise distance (m)

Y :

Transverse width of fuel bed (m)

Z :

Vertical fuel bed depth (m)

λ:

Transverse wavelength of flames (m)

r :

Pearson correlation coefficient

f :

Flame residence time

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. US Forest Service, Missoula Fire Sciences Lab, 5775 Hwy 10W, Missoula, MT, 59808, USA

    Mark A. Finney, Jason Forthofer & Isaac C. Grenfell

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, 40506, USA

    Brittany A. Adam, Nelson K. Akafuah & Kozo Saito

Authors
  1. Mark A. Finney
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  2. Jason Forthofer
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  3. Isaac C. Grenfell
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  4. Brittany A. Adam
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  5. Nelson K. Akafuah
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  6. Kozo Saito
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mark A. Finney .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. Mechanical Engineering, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, USA

    Kozo Saito

  2. Hirosaki University, Hirosaki-shi, Aomori, Japan

    Akihiko Ito

  3. Toyohashi University of Technology, Toyohashi, Japan

    Yuji Nakamura

  4. Yamagata University, Yonezawa-shi, Yamagata, Japan

    Kazunori Kuwana

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Finney, M.A., Forthofer, J., Grenfell, I.C., Adam, B.A., Akafuah, N.K., Saito, K. (2015). Section B Fire and Explosion - A Study of Flame Spread in Engineered Cardboard Fuel Beds Part I: Correlations and Observations of Flame Spread. In: Saito, K., Ito, A., Nakamura, Y., Kuwana, K. (eds) Progress in Scale Modeling, Volume II. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10308-2_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10308-2_5

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-10308-2

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