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Procedia Engineering 135 (2016) 261 – 274

Pool Fire Mass Burning Rate and Flame Tilt Angle under Crosswind in
Open Space
Ping Jianga,b, Shou-xiang Lua,*
a
State Key Laboratory of Fire Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China
b
Shen Yang Aerospace University, Daoyi South Avenue 37, Shenyang, Liaoning 110136, China

Abstract

To study the influence of crosswind on pool fires mass burning rates and flame tilt angles in open space, aviation fuel pool fires were
investigated. Diameters of fuel pans were 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5 and 0.6m in quiescent ambient air and 0.3, 0.4, 0.5 and 0.6m in crosswind
up to 4.71m/s. Taking advantages of a two axial flow fan wind wall system, small velocity increments in low crosswind velocity range
were obtained, which produced compact and abundant measured data under different crosswind velocities. It was found that the mass
burning rates variation process of a circular aviation fuel pool fire at different crosswind velocities could be divided into three stages as
the first increase stage, a radiation dominant stage, the second decrease stage, a radiation and convection combined dominant stage, and
the last increase stage, a convection dominant stage. First, based on experimental data of mass burning rates in quiescent air condition, the
two empirical factors in Zabetakis and Burgess Formula were obtained which could be used to predict mass burning rates for different
diameter fuel pan. Second, taking wind Froude Number as independent variable, a lognormal distribution regression equation to predict
the dimensionless mass burning rate was established which could be used as Fr Number is greater than zero and less than 0.75. Third, as
Fr Number was greater than 0.75 and less than 7.55, in consideration of that there was a thermal boundary layer between liquid fuel
surface and main flow of flame gas, neglecting variation of Prandtl Number, a relationship between Nusselt and Reynolds Number was
set up based on experimental data for the last stage and this correlation could be used to predict the forced convection heat transfer
coefficient between flame gas with different crosswind velocities and liquid fuel. Flame image sequences captured in qusi-steady period
were processed with a color image binarization program based on threshold of gray scale value to produce an iso-intermittency contour of
luminous flames and flame tilt angles were determined. Based on flame tilt angles of experimental data, parameters in different types of
regression equations generally used were calculated. According to the adjusted determination coefficient, correlations with the best
goodness of fit in terms of the experimental data were recommended.

©©2016
2016TheTheAuthors. Published
Authors. by Elsevier
Published Ltd. This
by Elsevier Ltd.is Open
an openaccess
accessunder
articleCC
under the CC BY-NC-ND
BY-NC-ND license.license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of School of Engineering of Sun Yat-sen University.
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of ICPFFPE 2015
.
Keywords: Aviation fuel pool fire; mass burning rate; flames tilt angle; crosswind velocity; forced convection heat transfer coefficient

Nomenclature
D fuel pan diameter (m)
ΔD magnitude of wind drags (m)
dv volume of a gas element (m3)
2
Fr wind Froude number, Fr uw
gD
h coefficient of convective heat transfer (kw/m2屇K)
L characteristic length (m)

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +86-551-6360-3141; fax: +86-551-6360-3141.

E-mail address: sxlu@ustc.edu.cn

1877-7058 © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of ICPFFPE 2015
doi:10.1016/j.proeng.2016.01.122
262 Ping Jiang and Shou-xiang Lu / Procedia Engineering 135 (2016) 261 – 274

Q* dimensionless heat release rate, Q* 

Q / Ua c pTa D2 gD 
Q heat release rate (kw)
g L  Ua  U  § T  Ta · gD
Ri Richardson numbe, Ri or ¨ ¸ 2
U a uw 2 © T ¹ uw
Re Reynolds number, Re uw D / Q a
TF flame gas temperature (K)
TB temperature of liquid fuel surface (K)
TR reference temperature to evaluate thermal properties of gas (ȭ), TR =800ȭ
cp air constant pressure specific heat (kJ/ kg屇K), cp=1.005 kJ/ (kg屇K)
g acceleration of gravity (m/s2)
ᇞH vaporization enthalpy of the fuel (kJ/kg), ᇞ H=260 kJ/kg.
mcc mass burning rate (g/ m2屇s)
n output frequency of transducer (Hz)
Nu Nusselt number, Nu hD / O
Pr Prandtl number, Pr Q / a , Pr=0.713 at reference temperature
uw crosswind velocity(m/s)
1/3
u* dimensionless wind velocity, u* uw / gm" D / a

Greek symbols
ρ density (kg/m3)
θ flame tilt angle (e)
λ thermal conductivity of gas (kw/m屇K), λ=0.0718 kw/m屇K at reference temperature
Q Kinematic viscosity of the air (m2/s), ν= 1.551×10-4 m2/s at reference temperature
κβ extinction coefficient (1/m)
¢ thermal diffusivity of gas (m2/s), ¢=1.888×10-4m2/s
³ Stefan-Boltzmann constant, ĥ
宀5669尸10-8 Wm2炔K4

1. Introduction

Mass burning rate, flame radiation properties, such as emissivity and temperature, and flame geometrical characteristics
including height, shape and tilt angle etc. are dominant factors in determination of thermal radiation flux from pool fires [1].
A pool fire is characterized by the establishment of a diffusion flame with inenarrable chemical kinetics on top of a
horizontal fuel where buoyancy forces, baroclinicity, turbulence and molecular diffusion are all transport mechanisms[2].
So up to now, it still can’t be described and solved fully from fundamental laws and experimental method is still the main
research means for people to described pool fires. It is even the case for pool fires under crosswind.

1.1. Mass burning rate

Previous burning rate measurements of qusi-steady period were, for the most part, made under calm conditions. Hottel[3]
stated that, for large diameter fires, the conduction term will become negligible, the convection term will be constant, and
the radiation term will be dominant and constant. The burning rate, therefore, should become constant for large diameter
liquid fires. For most fuels the data can be presented in predictive form as

m" mf" (1  eNE D ) (1)

This form was first proposed by Zabetakis and Burgess[4] . It requires determining two empirical factors: mfcc and κβ to
predict mcc of a pool fire with diameter of D.
Compared to studies on pool fires in quiescent ambient condition, investigations on characteristics of pool fires under
cross air flow are not as abundant as the former. Some former investigator [4-9] indicated that the mass burning rates
 Ping Jiang and Shou-xiang Lu / Procedia Engineering 135 (2016) 261 – 274 263

increase monotonically, or even linearly, with the increase of cross air flow velocity, but some other investigators got a
contrary conclusion [3, 10, 11].
For a certain diameter pool under a certain crosswind velocity, the energy release rate from it, the mass burning rate, the
combustion efficiency, the flame temperature, emissivity, the flame geometry, such as its length and tilt angle, so is the view
factor, etc. are interdependent. The burning rate is determined by the rate of heat feedback to the liquid fuel. For a circular
pool, Hottel[3] expressed this rate of heat feedback as

4k TF  TB 
mcc ~ qcc  h TF  TB   V F TF4  TB4 1  e NE D  (2)
D

Equation (2) assumes that all the incident energy is absorbed by the fuel. Hottel[3] indicated that if the mechanism of
heat feedback as expressed in Equation (2) was considered, the decrease in burning rate was readily explained. For a
particular pool diameter, consider k, h, TF, and κβ to be constant, the only remaining factor that could affect the rate of heat
feedback, hence the burning rate was the geometrical view factor. The geometrical view factor represents the radiant energy
returned to the surface of the pool, expressed as a fraction of the total radiant energy released by the flame. As the wind
velocity increases, the flame is tilted to greater angles and the view factor decreases, thus decreasing the rate of heat
feedback. So the effect of decreased radiative feedback was more noticeable for larger fires, because larger fires received a
greater fraction of energy feedback in the form of radiation than did small fires as shown by Hottel's analysis. Nevertheless
Zabetakis and Burgess[4] assumed that the effect of wind would increase the burning rate by increasing the extinction
coefficient κβ. This same work also pointed out that increases in view factor could be important in increasing burning rates.
Whatever the case, the effect of wind was assumed to be one of increasing the burning rate.
Ping[12]pointed out that it was different from pool fires in quiescent ambient air conditions that for medium or larger
ones radiation was the predominant heat transfer mechanism, but the predominant heat transfer mechanism would be
changed under different cross wind velocities, which resulted in variation of heat feedback to liquid fuel. A little later, this
conclusion was verified further by a more detailed research by Longhua Hu[13] on the evolution of heat feedbacks of
conduction, convection and radiation in relatively small square pool fires (10-25 cm) with horizontal cross air flows ranged
in 0̢3.0 m/s. Ethanol and heptanes were used as representative fuels, and a stagnant layer solution theory was then
proposed. Results in this study[13] indicated that fractions of conduction and radiation feedback didn’t change obviously
when wind Fr Number exceeded about unity and convection became predominantly.
Generally the increase of surface flow velocity should increase the forced convection heat transfer coefficient if other
conditions remain unchanged. For larger fuel pans and wind velocities, more study is needed to examine the convective heat
transfer regularity and the forced convection heat transfer coefficients need to be quantified under different crosswind
velocities. Adopting some predecessors' points and the experimental data of this study, the effects of crosswind on factors
affecting heat transfer are analyzed. Assumptions that variations of heat conduction and radiation can be ignored when wind
Fr Number exceeds a certain value, the increase of heat feedback is solely caused by forced heat convection of crosswind
are made. According to the increase of mass burning rate and energy balance relationship, forced convection heats are
calculated. Based on theories of forced convection, assume that there is also a thermal boundary layer between high-
temperature gas and liquid fuel like what exists between gas flow and a flat plate, then, there should be a certain relationship
among Nusselt number Nu, Reynolds number Re and Prandtl number Pr, that is:

Nu F( Re,Pr ) (3)

Based on experimental data, a semi-empirical function is founded.

1.2. Flame tilt angle

Flame tilt angle θ, under wind conditions have been studied by several investigators for decades of years. Walker,
Sliepcevick[14] and Emori and Saito [14] derived correlations as Equation (4) from small-scale experiments. They correlated
the angle of inclination as a function of crosswind velocity, but the results do not compare well with larger-scale data [1].
Where Cf is dimensionless flame drag coefficient defined by Walker[14]. One target is to seek for the dimensionless flame
drag coefficient.
264 Ping Jiang and Shou-xiang Lu / Procedia Engineering 135 (2016) 261 – 274

tan T 2C f uw2 (4)

cos T § U  Uf ·
S D¨ a ¸g
© Ua ¹

Muñoz [15] suggested that usually two types of correlations are used to predict flame tilt. The first type relates flame tilt
to the dimensionless wind speed u*, as

­a ' u* b
°  
'

u* t 1 (5)
cos T ®
°̄1 u *
1

The main drawback of these correlations is that for low wind velocity, they predict the flame tilt angle to be zero [1].
The second type of correlation expresses the tilt angles as a function of the wind Froude and Reynolds Numbers, as

tan (6)
c ' Fr d ' Ree '
cos

Although these correlations allow the tilt to be determined at low wind velocities, but none of them led to good results [15].
J.A. Fay[16] also proposed an empirical correlation in terms of Froude Number, as

Fr (7)
sin
Fr 0.19

But there was considerable scatter in the measured flame tilt angles to build up this correlation, and there were almost no
measured data for low wind velocity range.
Longhua Hu et al[17] suggested that for hydrocarbon pool fire the mass burning rate determines buoyancy strength of
the fire, which in competition to inertial force of the wind, in turn dominates the flame tilt angle. In fact buoyancy force on
fluid element depends on magnitude of (TF-Ta)/TF, and it has no definite correlation with mass burning rate. Experiments
were carried out for ethanol and heptanes square pool fires with dimensions of 10 cm, 15 cm, 20 cm and 25 cm in wind
velocity of 0-2.5 m/s(0˘Fr˘2.3), but also only a limited number of experiments were in wind velocity of 0-0.5m/s[17].
Because mass burning rates and flame tilt angles of pool fires are both very sensitive to variation of velocities in low
velocity range[16] and the two interact with each other, there might be some significant facts about the pool fire mass
burning rate and flame tilt angle were not brought to light by former investigators. One possible cause for this problem to
arise might be that the crosswind velocity increments (generally 0.5 m/s or larger [13, 14, 17]) in pool fire experiments were
too big, especially in low velocity range.

2. Experiment

2.1. Experiment facility

Aviation fuel is a kind of common fire hazard liquid on some occasions such as on an aircraft carrier deck or trial flight
airfields, mass burning rates and flame tilt angles of circular aviation fuel pool fires were investigated in crosswind field
supplied by a wind wall system. The height and width of its cross section equal to 2m and 1m. The schematic of the
experimental setup is shown as Fig. 1(a). The wind wall system is located in a large space building with length × width ×
height = 20 m × 12 m × 20 m in its three dimensions.
The wind wall system consists of two axial flow fans (1.5 kW each, total wind pressure 191 Pa), honeycomb structure for
air flow smoothing, framework structure, outside shell and two power transducers for each of the electromotor of the fans.
The output frequency of the two power transducers can be adjusted from 0Hz to 50Hz, the adjustment accuracy of the
output frequency is 0.1Hz, and the rotation rates of the fans from 0 to 1450rpm (round per minute) can be obtained by
adjusting the output frequency of the transducers. As in Fig. 1(b), smoothed air stream flows out of B-B opening and blows
downward freely. The B-B section is rectangular in shape with its width × height = 1.0 m × 2 m.
Horizontal air flow velocities at uniformly distributed points on cross section A-A were measured with an anemometer.
Take the average velocity on the measuring points as crosswind velocity uw. The best fit formula of uw derived from
measured data to n is as
 Ping Jiang and Shou-xiang Lu / Procedia Engineering 135 (2016) 261 – 274 265

uw 0.102n  0.388 (8)

Equation (8) is applicable for n>3.8 Hz for there was kinetic energy loss in the honeycomb structures.
Before igniting the pool, the fans were started to reach its steady state and the crosswind velocity were not adjusted in an
experimental duration. For all of the experiments the distance between the fuel pan centre and the B-B cross section was
always set to 4 meters. As in Fig. 1(c), a fire resistant board with a circular hole in its centre was sported above the
electronic balance. The accuracy of the electronic balance is 0.1g and the sampling interval was set to 1s. A CCD camera
was set orthogonal to the direction of crosswind to record the instantaneous changes of the pool fire flames.

Fig. 1. Schematic of experimental setup (a), (b) top view and (c) vertical section of fuel pan and electronic balance lay out.

2.2. Experimental data processing method

2.2.1 Mass burning rate

Fig.2 presents a typical time-mass variation curve in an experiment and instantaneous mass burning rates derived from it.
It can be seen that the instantaneous mass burning rate changes very little about one minute after the test begins and the pool
fire reaches its so called quasi steady period. Mass burn rates of the pool fires in the steady period are calculate by averaging
the data in the steady-state and then divided by the areas of the circular fuel pans.
2.2.2 Time-average tilt angle from continuous flame images
The flame image sequences in the quasi steady period were captured in KMplayer. The durations of the capturing time
were all 10s and 300 continuous frames images were obtained for each test in its steady period. Each flame image was
processed by a color image binarization program based on gray scale value on each pixel dot to produce the binarization
image of the luminous flame. Examples of flame binarization images are shown in Fig. 3.

3.0 400
mass burning rate(g/s)

2.5
mass burning rate 300
fuel mass left
mass left(g)

2.0
200
1.5
100
1.0

0.5 0

-20 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180

time(s)

Fig. 2. Time-mass curve and instantaneous mass burning rates Fig. 3. Binarization processing of luminous flame

By accumulating the 300 binarization images the iso-intermittency contour were acquired, as shown figure 4. The tilt
angle being investigated in this paper refers to the tilt angle of the main fire plume, which could still retain its characteristic
of axial symmetry and it could be verified from the iso-intermittency contour as shown in Figure.4.

3. A concise derivation about Ri and Fr Number

The flame gas elements begin to accelerate upward rapidly when buoyancy force acts on it, which owes to gas density
difference to surrounding fresh air. The streamline of the incandescent gas element is embodied globally by the luminous
flame trajectory, so the tilt angle of the flame can be taken as the angle between the tangential of gas element streamline and
the vertical line. The crosswind velocity can be taken as the horizontal velocity of the gas in fire plume [21].
266 Ping Jiang and Shou-xiang Lu / Procedia Engineering 135 (2016) 261 – 274

Fig. 4. Flame iso-intermittency contour and tilt angle and flame “wind drag”

For a gas element of volume dv, net buoyancy force acting on it is FB, and

FB ~  Ua  U  gdv (8)

Horizontal inertia force of the gas element is FI, and

U a uw 2 dv (9)
FI ~
L

Divide Equation (9) by Equation (10) and replace characteristic length L with fuel pan diameter D, it becomes

FI U a uw 2 (10)
~
FB g D  Ua  U 

The reciprocal of right hand side of Equation (10) is Richardson Number Ri. The relative magnitude of the buoyancy and
inertia forces in flows can be captured by Ri Number. Using ideal gas law under constant pressure condition, Ri-1 will
becomes

U a uw 2 § TF · uw 2 (11)
Ri 1 ¨ ¸
g D  Ua  U  © TF  Ta ¹ gD

For high temperature flame gas, the ratio TF/(TF-Ta) approaches to a constant and it is not sensitive to gas temperature
variation. Take TF as a constant will not bring much error to TF/(TF-Ta). TF in hydrocarbon pool fire flame in open space
depends on excess air coefficient, ''combustion heat of the fuel, radiation heat fraction and combustion efficiency etc, and it
has no definite correlation with m . The highest measured gas temperature of large aviation fuel pool fires under crosswind
was roughly 1400 K[21], but for medium size pool fires, TF might be a little lower, for the lessening of smoke obscuration
effect [22].If TF changes from 1100K to 1300K, the ratio will change from 0.734 to 0.775, both less than 3% compared to the
value at 1200K, 0.756 as it is.
Combine Equation (4 ) and (11) , then:

tan T 2C f uw2 2C f (12)

Ri1
cos T § U  Uf · S
S D¨ a ¸g
© Ua ¹

Equation (12) indicate that tanθ/cosθ could be linearly related to Ri-1, this still need experimental verification and the
dimensionless flame drag coefficient Cf need to be determined based on the experimental data.
In fact, the dimensionless wind Froude Number Fr, representing the ratio between inertia forces to gravity forces can be
expressed as:

uw 2 (13)
Fr
gD
 Ping Jiang and Shou-xiang Lu / Procedia Engineering 135 (2016) 261 – 274 267

From Equatio (11) and Equation (13) indicate that wind Fr Number is in proportion to reciprocal of Ri-1, so if the flame
tilt angle could be scaled with Ri-1, it should be scaled with Fr Number, which will be discussed combining with the
experimental data later.

4. Results and Discussion

4.1. Mass burning rates results

4.1.1 Mass burning rates in quiescent ambient air conditions

Mass burning rates in quiescent ambient air conditions are presented in Figure 6. According to the data in Figure 6, the
regression equation can be written as

m" 30.46(1  e1.824 D ) (14)

"
So the estimated maximum burning rate mf of the aviation fuel is 30.46g/ (m2·s), and κβ is 1.82427m-1.
4.1.2 Mass burning rates under different crosswind velocities
As shown in figure 7, under the same cross air flow velocity, for different fuel pans, the mass burning rates of pool fires
increase with the increase of fuel pan diameters. With the increase of cross air flow velocities, the mass burning rates of a
pool fire do not vary monotonically, while the mass burning rates of different pool fires vary analogously.
dia.=0.3m
24 36 m1'' dia.=0.4m
34
dia.=0.5m
22 mass burining rate dia.=0.6m
regression function 32
m3''
20 30
Mass burning rate(g/m2˜s)

mass buring rate(g/m ˜s)

28
m''0
2

18 26

16
24 m''2
22
14 20
Model emissivityFunction1 (User)
18
Equation a*(1-exp(-b*x))
12 3.69473 16
Reduced
Chi-Sqr
14
10 Adj. R-Square 0.86367
Value Standard Error 12
8 mass burining a 30.46023 11.48265 10
rate b 1.82427 1.05839
8
6 6
0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0 5.5
Fuel pan diameter(m) crosswind velocity(m/s)

Fig. 5. Mass burning rates in quiescent ambient air. Fig. 6. Mass burning rates under different crosswind velocities.

4.1.3 Analysis of the influential factors on pool fire burning rate under crosswind
The characteristic mass burning rates are listed in Table 1. For each pool diameter, with the increase of crosswind
"
velocities, the mass burning rates increase abruptly to a maximum value m1 at a very low cross air flow velocity, then
"
decrease promptly to a minimum value m2 . For the last stage, as the crosswind velocities continue to increase, the mass
"
burning rates increase to m3 . So the variation process of mass burning rates with crosswind velocities can be divided into
three stages as the first beginning increase stage, the second decrease stage, and the last increase stage.

Table 1. Characteristic mass burning rates

D(m) m0(g/m2·s) m1(g/m2·s) u1(m/s) Fr θ m2(g/m2·s) u2(m/s) Fr θ m3(g/m2·s) u3(m/s) Fr θ

0.3 12.16 15.83 0.33 0.04 33.8 7.8 1. 1 0.40 59.2 24.2 4.7 7.55 85.2
0.4 14.48 22.58 0.53 0.07 29.1 13.33 1.3 0.43 61.1 27.59 4.7 5.66 85.0
0.5 16.71 29.36 0.53 0.06 26.1 16.37 1.9 0.74 66.7 28.69 4.7 4.53 84.6
0.6 22.16 34.19 0.53 0.05 11.6 19.71 1.5 0.38 53.5 29.95 4.7 3.78 84.4

Equation 2 indicates that burning rate of a pool fire depends on at least 7 factors listed in Table 2, and analysis according
to experiments and predecessors’ study is listed herein.
The view factor between the flame and the liquid fuel surface equals to the ratio between the incident heats from the
flame to the liquid fuel surface to the total radiation heat released by the flame. The incident heat that reaches the fuel
surface comes from any position within the whole flame volume, so the view factor depends on the geometrical relationship
between the flame and the fuel surface.
268 Ping Jiang and Shou-xiang Lu / Procedia Engineering 135 (2016) 261 – 274

From the CCD images (appendix A) of the pool fires it was found that in the first beginning stage, the length of the
flames has a perceptible enlargement at very low cross air flow velocities compared to the flame length in quiescent ambient
condition. This is because that the low velocity cross air flow enhances the shear strain of fluid particles in pool fire plumes,
that is, more small scale vortexes may be created locally at the peripheral interfaces of the air and fire plume flows because
of the interaction of horizontal air stream and gas flow in fire plumes. This facilitates the air entrainment at the edge of the
fire plumes and improves the mixture of fresh air and fuel vapor in flame base so as to the combustion efficiency.
Considering the above factors and the display and state of the fire plumes under low velocity air flow, it could be deduced
that the maximum temperatures in fire plumes also have a considerable elevations, so does the amount of radiation heat
back to the fuel in the pans.
Table 1 and FigureA2 shows that at low velocity air flows when the maximum mass burning rate appears, the tilt angle
of the pool fires flames are about 26°, so it can be deduced that the effect of shape factor lessening of the flames to the pan
on the amount of radiation heat back to the liquid fuel in the pan is not very much compared to the effect of temperature
elevation of the pool fire flames. After this, as the air flow velocities continue to increase, the amount of radiation heat back
to the liquid fuel in a pan lessens significantly because the flame tilt angels increase obviously so the flame view factors to
fuel pans decrease a lot. For example, for the 0.5 m diameter pool fire, the minimum mass burning rate appears when the air
flow velocity is about 1.9 m/s and the flame tilt angle exceeds 67°. At the same time, the temperature of fire plumes may
decrease to some degree resulting from the fact that too much fresh air mixes with fuel gas under the present air flow
velocity. So in the second stage, the variations of flame temperature and the view factor make the radiation heat feedback
decrease promptly, and the minimum mass burning rate appears.
The convective heat transfer coefficient would increase with the increase of crosswind velocity near the liquid surface.
This makes the mass burning rate increase rapidly.

Table 2. Analysis of influential factors on pool fires burning rates under crosswind

factor Variation trend along with increase of crosswind velocity Influence on heat feedback

Generally k reduces 15% per 100K with the increase of liquid fuel temperature, but the
k Could be neglected.
liquid fuel temperature decreases in 15K about with the increase of crosswind velocity
Flame emissivity increases exponentially with D. For large diameter fires, the conduction Conduction variation could be
D term becomes negligible; the larger the diameter is, the less the conduction term increase neglected for large diameter fires
with the increase of crosswind velocity. under different crosswind velocity.
Gentle breezes contribute to the mixing of air and fuel gas and the improvement of the Burning rate increases evidently in
combustion efficiency, which observably increases the flame temperature, so does the low crosswind velocity so does
TF radiation heat feedback for the radiation heat scales with four times power of flame the flame length, but when TF
temperature. Further increase of crosswind velocity makes the excess air coefficient decrease, the effect of temperature
exceed one, and TF decrease a lot. change can be neglected.
TB liquid fuel temperature decreases in 15K with the increase of crosswind velocity Could be neglected.
Flame length increases in low crosswind velocity range because of the increase of
As flame tilt angle is less than
burning rate so the view factor may increases; But the deflection of the flame has the
30e, increase of view angle and
opposite effect on view factor. The two opposite effects may counteract each other as the
flame temperature lead to the
tilt angle is less than 30e. Further investigation is needed to determine the two opposite
increase of radiation feedback; As
effects on the view factor. As the wind velocity increases further, the flame is tilted to
flame tilt angle is in the range of
greater angles and the flame length lessens, so the flame view factor decreases, thus
30 e ~65 e , decrease of flame
F decreasing the rate of radiation heat feedback as the flame tilt angle is about in 30-65e.
view factor and temperature leads
The effect of decreased radiation feedback is more noticeable for larger fires, because
to decrease of radiation feedback;
larger fires receive a greater fraction of their energy feedback in the form of radiation
As flame tilt angle is greater than
than do small fires. The flame tilt angle is very sensitive to variation of crosswind
65 e , view factor and flame
velocity in low velocity range, but as the flame tilt angle is greater than 65e(Fr>0.75),
temperature both change a little,
flame tilt angle increases slowly with increase of crosswind velocity, it can be assumed
so does the radiation feedback.
that the view factor change a little when its tilt angle is greater than 65e.

1  e NE D The effect of crosswind to flame emissivity is still not clear and κβ might increase with
wind velocity.
Assume that
negligible.
the change is

Convective heat transfer intensity increases with increase of the crosswind velocity and
Convective heat increases with the
h its fraction might increase from 10-25% to 60-80% of the total heat feedback as Fr
increase of crosswind velocity.
Number increase from zero to 7.55 about.

4.1.4 Dimensionless mass burning with wind Fr Number (Fr<0.75)

 Ping Jiang and Shou-xiang Lu / Procedia Engineering 135 (2016) 261 – 274 269

As analysis in table 2, for the first and second stage the wind Fr Number is the key factor, so take each m0 of different
diameters as the normalization factor, dimensionless mass burning rate results versus Fr Number and lognormal distribution
regression equation are shown in figure 8. Dimensionless mass burning rates fit approximately to lognormal distribution
indicates that low crosswind velocity range is also a sensitive interval for mass burning rate so as for flame tilt angle.
dimensionless mass burning rate
LogNormal Fit of Sheet1 B"dimensionless mass burning rate"
1.8 1.8 LogNormal
Model
D=0.3m

dimensionless mass burning rate

y = y0 + A/(sqrt(2*PI)*w*x)*exp(-(ln(x

dimensionless mass burning rate

Equation
D=0.4m 1.6
/xc))^2/(2*w^2))
1.6 Reduced 0.02112
D=0.5m Chi-Sqr
0.64205
D=0.6m 1.4
Adj. R-Square
1.4 Value Standard Error
y0 0.93237 0.05066
dimensionless xc 0.08372 0.01869
1.2 mass burning
1.2 rate w 0.85386 0.13638
A 0.07065 0.01261

1.0 1.0

0.8 0.8

0.6 0.6

-0.1 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 -0.1 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8

(a) Fr (b) Fr

Fig. 7. Normalized results of mass burning with Fr Number (a) normalized results of different D and (b) lognormal distribution regression equation

4.1.4 Convective heat transfer coefficient(0.75< Fr< 7.55)

To analyze the experimental data from perspective of forced convection theories of external flow (as shown in Figure 9)
as the Fr Number exceeds 0.75, take the liquid surface as a flat plate to inspect the correlation of Nu Number with Re and Pr
Numbers where the thermal properties of flame gas are evaluated at 800 ć and choose the fuel pan diameter D as
"
characteristic length. Based on study by Longhua Hu [23], assume that contribution of convective heat fraction to m2 is
about 67.5% and after this point, the increase of mass burning rate solely arise from the increase of convective heat. Assume
the temperature difference between the liquid fuel and flame gas is 600, 700, 800 and 900K for fuel pan diameters of 0.3,
0.4, 0.5 and 0.6m. An attempt was made to seek for a correlation fitting for Equation (4). The results are shown in figure 10.
Nu
70
Allometric1 Fit of Sheet1 J"Nu"

60

50

40 Allometric1
Nu

Model
Equation y = a*x^b
Reduced 7.3086
30 Chi-Sqr
Adj. R-Squar 0.9687
Value Standard Err
20
a 0.0119 0.00417
Nu
b 0.8860 0.03776

10

2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000 16000 18000

Re

Fig. 8. External forced convection on the liquid fuel surface under crosswind. Fig. 9. Experimental results of Nu and Re Number and regression equation.

Then the regression equation is as

Nu 0.0119 Re0.886 (15)

Figure.10 indicates that the power function of Equation (15) fit the experimental data well and it can be used to predict
the forced convection heat transfer coefficient under different crosswind velocities.

4.2. Flame tilt angle results and discussion

4.2.1 Flame tilt angle results under different crosswind velocities

Flame tilt angle results under different crosswind velocities are presented in figure 11. It can been seen that there are
three regions for the tilt angle increasing process with the increase of crosswind. The first region is the initial rapid
increasing region and the tilt angles change from zero to about 55e, corresponding to 0-0.301 for Fr Number and 0-0.398
for Ri Number. In this region, flame tilt angles almost increase linearly with the increase of Froude or Richardson Number.
The increasing curves in this region are very steep indicating that flame tilt angles are very sensitive to the variation of
Froude or Richardson Number and the slope of the curve are very important to the accurate prediction of flame tilt angle.
The second region is the transition region and the tilt angles changes from about 55eto 77e, corresponding to 0.301-
1.685 for Fr Number and 0.398-2.227 for Ri Number. In this region, the curves make an arc turn. Afterwards the tilt angles
begin to increase very slowly with the increase of Froude or Richardson Number and this is the third incremental region.
270 Ping Jiang and Shou-xiang Lu / Procedia Engineering 135 (2016) 261 – 274

(a) (b) (c)

100
100

80 80
80
dia.=0.3m
D=0.3m dia.=0.4m dia.=0.3m
D=0.4m 60
60 dia.=0.5m dia.=0.4m
Flame tilt angle

60 D=0.5m
dia.=0.5m

tilt angle
dia.=0.6m

tilt angle
D=0.6m
dia.=0.6m
40 40
40

20 20 20

0 0 0

0 1 2 3 4 5 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 0 2 4 6 8 10
Crosswind velocity (m/s) Fr 1/Ri

Fig. 10. Experimental results of flame tilt angles (a) under different crosswind velocity and (b), (c) with Fr or Ri-1.

4.2.2 Regression equations and the one with the best goodness
Regression equations are as the followings.

x The first type as shown in Figure 12.

tan (16)
c ' Fr d ' Ree ' 0. 3 7 Fr1.15948
0.1317 11.11
Re0.38181
cos

Table 3. Parameters for Equation 16

Investigators c' d' e' Ref.

Moorhouse 1.9 0.339 0.05 [8]

Johnson 0.7 0.428 0.109 [9]
Pritchard and Binding 0.666 0.333 0.117 [10]
Rew and Hulbert 3.13 0.431 [11]
This study 0.1317 1.15948 0.38181 Adj. R-Square=0.99149

x The second type as shown in Figure 13

tan T 2C f
Ri1 10.7526 Ri1 (17)
cos T S

So the average dimensionless flame drag coefficient Cf is 16.89.

120
tan/cos tan/cos
120
Linear Fit of Sheet1 B"tan/cos" Linear Fit of Sheet1 B"tan/cos"
100
100

80
80
tan/cos

60
tan/cos

60
Equation y = a + b*x
Equation y = a + b*x
Weight No Weighting No Weighting
Weight
40 Residual Sum 1487.45092 Residual Sum 1487.44958
of Squares 40
of Squares
Pearson's r 0.98421 Pearson's r 0.98421
Adj. R-Square 0.96821 Adj. R-Square 0.96821
20 Value Standard Error 20 Value Standard Erro
Intercept 0 -- Intercept 0 --
tan/cos tan/cos
Slope 10.75261 0.23116 Slope 14.14817 0.30416

0 0

0 2 4 6 8 10 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1/Ri Fr

Fig. 11. tanθ/cosθ and Re, Fr Number Fig. 12. tanθ/cosθ and 1/Ri, Fr Number

x The third type as shown in Figure 14.

 Ping Jiang and Shou-xiang Lu / Procedia Engineering 135 (2016) 261 – 274 271

9.45 1/ Ri 
0.9896

sin T
(18a)
1  9.3 1/ Ri 
0.9896

12.4 Fr 0.9896
sin T
1  12.2 Fr 0.9896 (18b)

x The fourth type

a '  u*  0.75  u * 
b' 0.28
cos T (19)

Table 4 parameters for Equation 19

a’ b’ notes ref
M. Muñoz 0.96 -0.26 Large gasoline and diesel pool fires [5]
AGA 1 -0.50 LNG pool fires [6]
Thomas 0.7 -0.49 Wooden crib fires [7]
Moorhouse 0.86 -0.25 Cylindrical flames [8]
This study 0.75069 -0.28186 Aviation pool fires

1.0 cosine
1.0 Allometric1 Fit of Sheet1 L"cosine
1.0
Model Allometric1

sine 0.8 sine Equation y = a*x^b

LangmuirEXT1 Fit of Sheet1 B"sine" 0.8 Reduced 0.03385
0.8 LangmuirEXT1 Fit of Sheet1 C"sine"
Chi-Sqr
Adj. R-Square 0.6331
0.6 Model LangmuirEXT1
Model LangmuirEXT1 y = (a*b*x^(1-c))/(1 + b*x^(1-c)) Value Standard Erro
sine

Equation
cosine

0.6 y = (a*b*x^(1-c))/(1 + b*x^(1-c)) 0.6 a 0.75069 0.02608

Equation Reduced 0.00935
sine

0.00935 cosine
Reduced Chi-Sqr b -0.28186 0.02692
Chi-Sqr 0.4 Adj. R-Square 0.90263
0.4 Adj. R-Square 0.90263
Value Standard Error
Value Standard Error
a 1.01646 0.03166
0.4
a 1.01646 0.03166
sine b 12.19976 3.85633
sine b 9.29783 2.68542 0.2
0.2 c 0.01041 0.10542
c 0.01044 0.10542
0.2

0.0
0.0

0.0
0 2 4 6 8 10 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
1/Ri Fr u*

Fig. 13. sinθ and 1/Ri or Fr Number Fig. 14. u* and cosθ.

According to adj.R-Square (adjusted determination coefficient), equations (16) and (17) are the correlations with the best
goodness of fit in terms of the experimental data.

5. Conclusions

Pool fire mass burning rates and flame tilt angles of different sizes circular aviation fuel pool fires under crosswind in
open space were investigated. Taking advantage of a new invented wind wall system, small velocity increments in low air
flow velocity range were obtained, which produced compact and abundant measured data for the quantification. It is found
that the mass burning rates of a circular aviation fuel pool fire do not vary linearly or monotonically with the increase of
cross air flow velocities in an open space and the mass burning rates variation process can be divided into three stages as the
first beginning increase stage, the decrease stage, and the last increase stage. At the beginning, with the increase of cross air
flow velocities, the mass burning rates increase abruptly to a maximum value at a very low cross air flow velocities, then it
begins to decrease promptly to a minimum value. For the last stage, as the cross air flow velocities continues to increase, the
mass burning rates begin to increase with crosswind velocities. The first and second stage can be seen as radiation-
convection combined control stage, and the last stage is mainly dominated by heat convection.
mcc
First, based on experimental data of mass burning rates in quiescent air condition, the two empirical factors in Zabetakis
and Burgess Formula, f and κβ, were obtained, which can be used to predict mass burning rates for different diameters
fuel pan. Second, take wind Fr Number as independent variable, a lognormal distribution regression equation to predict the
dimensionless mass burning rate was established which can be used as Fr Number is greater than zero and less than 0.75.
272 Ping Jiang and Shou-xiang Lu / Procedia Engineering 135 (2016) 261 – 274

Third, as Fr Number is greater than 0.75 and less than 7.55, in consideration of that there is a thermal boundary layer
between liquid fuel surface and main flow of flame gas, neglecting variation of Pr Number, a relationship between Nu and
Re Number was set up based on experimental data for the last stage and this correlation can be used to predict the forced
convection heat transfer coefficient with different crosswind velocities of liquid fuel. Based on flame tilt angles of
experimental data, parameters in different type of regression equations were calculated. According to adj.R-Square, two
correlations with the best goodness of fit in terms of the experimental data were recommended. These two models all fit
well compared to measured data.
For the first and the second stages, further studies are needed to quantify the radiation and convection heat separately,
which involve temperature, emissivity and view factor between the flame and the liquid fuel under different crosswind.
Under high velocity cross air flow, the enhancement of evaporation by convection heat transfer becomes momentous.
This indicates that for different volatile combustible liquids, the effect of cross air flow would be quite different. Under a
relatively low velocity air flow, the mass burning rates may be enhanced by convection heat transfer evidently for high
volatile combustible liquids. So it is necessary to investigate pool fire mass burning rates of liquids with different volatilities.

Acknowledgements

It will be added later.

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Appendix A. Flame images under different crosswind velocities

u = 0 m/s u = 0.12m/s u = 0.22 m/s u = 0.33 m/s u = 0.43 m/s u = 0.53 m/s u = 0.63 m/s

u = 0.73 m/s u = 0.83 m/s u = 0.89 m/s

u = 0.99 m/s u = 1.1 m/s u = 1.3 m/s

u = 1.5 m/s u = 1.9 m/s

u = 2.5 m/s

u = 4.71 m/s

Fig. A1. Flame images under different crosswind velocities, dia. = 0.5 m.
274 Ping Jiang and Shou-xiang Lu / Procedia Engineering 135 (2016) 261 – 274

Fig.A2 iso-intermittency contour of luminous flame for diameter of 0.3, 0.4, 0.5 and 0.6m pool fires under u1, u2 and u3.

Ping Jiang. Data and place of birth: May 1974, Heilongjiang Province, China. State Key Laboratory of Fire Science,
USTC, China, Hefei, Dr.. Major Field of study: fire dynamics and fire risk assessment.

Te

Test4-16