FV2001 Assignment Brief

The deadline for submission is at 23:59 (HKT) on 8th April

2022 (Friday). The assignment should be submitted through
Turnitin in the CityU Canvas Assignment folder.

Aims of Assessment

• To assimilate the fundamental principles underlying fluid flow and apply

the principles to fires and explosions.
• To assess your knowledge for the theoretical and practical themes in fire
engineering and encourage you to start preparing for your end of semester
exam.
• To assess your ability to evaluate the results and improve the qualitative
understanding of combustion, fire and explosion phenomena.

Learning Outcomes

This piece of assessment will test your ability to meet learning outcomes 1 and 4 as described
in your module booklet: -

• Describe fundamental principles developed in fluid dynamics, heat and

mass transfer.
• Examine the main characteristics of jet and buoyant flames, fire plumes
and flows encountered in fire environments.

Assignment Details

1. In the figure below, determine the gauge pressure of the water at A if hX = 0.8 m and the
mercury in hY and hZ is 0.5 m and 0.3 m respectively. Given that the density of mercury
and water is 13600 kg/m3 and 1000 kg/m3.

1
2. In winter, indoor ambient temperature is 8°C. An elderly turned on an electric heater at
home. He switched the heater to 40°C in living room and went to bedroom for a nap. The
wall between living room and bedroom is built by brick covered by 102mm brick and
12.5mm plaster board on both side of the brick (thermal conductivity is 0.77 W/m·K and
0.21 W/m·K). Evaluate the following:

a. Overall heat transfer coefficient from electric heater to the bedroom, given that
convection heat transfer coefficient (h) is 20 W/m2·K

b. Overall heat transfer per unit area from electric heater to the bedroom.

3. Fire breaks out with fast growth rate with fire size to be 2MW in a 3m x 4m stall in shopping
mall with ceiling height to be 5m, the shopping mall is equipped with smoke detector, each
detector can cover 7.5m radius of floor area. Assume the ambient temperature to be 20°C,
evaluate the following:

a. Mean flame height of the fire.

b. Mass flow rate of the plume at the ceiling.
c. Ceiling jet temperature and velocity when the fire is located at the centre of 4 smoke
detectors.
d. Estimate the time to for ceiling jet to reach the smoke detector for the above scenario.

4. A jet of water from a 200 mm diameter nozzle is directed vertically upward. Please identify
the diameter of the jet at a point 3 m above the nozzle when the velocity of the jet leaves
the nozzle is 9 m/s.

5.
a. Calculate the temperature regarding the heat loss through a brick wall of 8 m long and
5 m high. The brick wall of 200 mm thick have the glass of 70 mm. The brick has the
thermal conductivity of 0.72 W/m.K, while that of glass is 0.78 W/m.K. Given that the
temperature of the exposed brick wall is 35oC and that of the glass is 20oC.

b. A rubber water tank of thickness 50 mm contains water at 60 oC and the outside

temperature is 25oC. The thermal conductivity of rubber is 0.13 W/m.K, and the
convective heat transfer coefficient of water and outside air are 3000 W/m2K and 25
W/m2K respectively. Calculate the temperature of the outside surface of the tank.

Marking Criteria are attached/ included.