Citation

Wan H, Gao Z, Ji J, Zhang Y, Li K, Wang L. J. Hazard. Mater. 2019; 369: 116-124.

Affiliation

Department of Building, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Concordia University, 1445 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, Montreal, QC H3G 1M8, Canada.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.jhazmat.2019.01.111

PMID

30776594

Abstract

The interaction of multiple pool fires might lead to higher burning rate and flame height than single pool fire, raising the possibility of fire ignition and flame spread and increasing the risks to people, buildings and environment. To quantify the burning rate and flame height of multiple pool fires from the view of physical mechanism, this paper presents an experimental study on two identical square pool fires. Heptane was used as fuel. The pool size and spacing were varied.

RESULTS showed that both the burning rate and flame height change non-monotonically with spacing. From the view of air entrainment, a correlation for the flame height of two pool fires is developed involving pool size, spacing and the flame height of zero spacing. The comparison with experimental results shows that the developed correlation is suitable for two heptane or propane fires. A theoretical study based on energy balance at one of the pool surfaces is performed to evaluate the burning rate of two fires, which is finally expressed as a function of pool size, spacing, burning rate and the flame height of single fire. The proposed model is validated using the experimental and literature data, which presents a reasonable reliability.

Copyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Language: en

Keywords

Air entrainment; Burning rate; Flame height; Heat feedback; Multiple pool fires