FLAME HEIGHTS AND HEAT TRANSFER FROM GASEOUS, LIQUID AND SOLID FUELS FOR BURN PATTERN REPEATABILITY RESEARCH

Published

July 1, 2010

Author(s)

Daniel M. Madrzykowski, Charles Fleischmann

Abstract

In 2009, the National Research Council of the National Academies (U.S) published a report identifying the research needs of the forensic science community. In the field of fire investigation, one of the specific needs identified was research on the natural variability of burn patterns. A multi-year study to examine the repeatability of burn patterns has been started. This presentation will provide the results from the initial phase of the study in which fires from three different fuels were characterized. These fires will serve as the source fires for the residential scale, pre-flashover fire pattern repeatability experiments. Experiments were conducted with three different fuels: natural gas, gasoline and polyurethane foam. Replicate experiments were conducted with each of the fuels, in order to examine the repeatability of the fires. Heat release rate, temperatures in the plume, and a heat flux measurement along the centerline of the plume were measured. Flame movement and height was recorded with photographs and videos. Years of fire research have provided many methods, ranging from simple algorithms to computational fluid dynamics models for predicting flame characteristics such as median flame height, plume temperatures, and radiant heat flux. Popular algorithms that have been identified for use in fire investigations or fire hazard analysis have been applied to the three different fuels and the predictions compared with the results of the fire experiments.

Proceedings Title

12th International Conference on Fire Science and Engineering

Conference Dates

July 5-7, 2010

Conference Location

Nottingham

Conference Title

Interflam 2010

Pub Type

Conferences

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Keywords

fire experiments, fire investigation, flame height, heat flux, heat release rate

Citation

Madrzykowski, D. and Fleischmann, C. (2010), FLAME HEIGHTS AND HEAT TRANSFER FROM GASEOUS, LIQUID AND SOLID FUELS FOR BURN PATTERN REPEATABILITY RESEARCH, 12th International Conference on Fire Science and Engineering, Nottingham, -1, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=905896 (Accessed October 4, 2024)