Radiation Transport Measurements in Methanol Pool Fires with Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy. NIST GCR 09-922

Published

February 2, 2009

Author(s)

Aykut Yilmaz

Abstract

Pool fires are buoyancy-driven diffusion flames fed by the vaporization of a horizontally aligned, condensed-phase fuel. Volatile liquids and solids can serve as fuels for pool fires. The characteristic length of a pool fire is the pool diameter, d. This was justified by Blinov and Khudiakov, who demonstrated that burning rates of pool fires are a function of d, which determines the surface area of the fuel exposed to oxygen.¹ The sizes of pool fires span several orders of magnitude, from matches (10^-3 m) to fuel spills (102 m). d is used as the characteristic length in the definition of non-dimensional numbers describing flame structure, such as the Froude number² and the Strouhal number.³ The structure and behavior of the fires vary greatly depending on the fuel properties and the pool diameter.

Citation

Grant/Contract Reports (NISTGCR) - 09-922

Report Number

09-922

NIST Pub Series

Grant/Contract Reports (NISTGCR)

Pub Type

NIST Pubs

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Keywords

burning rate, flame structure, heat transfer, pool fires

Citation

Yilmaz, A. (2009), Radiation Transport Measurements in Methanol Pool Fires with Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy. NIST GCR 09-922, Grant/Contract Reports (NISTGCR), National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=901554 (Accessed October 14, 2025)