An investigation of flame tilt transition inside the compartment with horizontal opening in cross wind

Abstract

This paper experimentally investigated the flame tilt transition of the heptane pool fires inside a compartment with horizontal opening in cross wind, which has not been reported till now. A series of experiments were carried out with a 0.4 m cubic compartment with fully opening at the top. The cross wind produced by a small-scale wind tunnel ranged from 0 to 3 m/s, which was parallel to the horizontal opening. Temperature field inside the compartment was obtained by the forty-nine thermocouples. Results showed that the flame inside the compartment with horizontal opening had a tilt transition, which would tilt from the windward side towards the leeward side with the increase of cross wind velocity, and keep vertical at a certain velocity value. The critical cross wind velocity for the flame tilt transition was obtained. Temperature differences between windward and leeward side presented the decrease and then increase trend with the cross wind velocity increasing. Moreover, the critical cross wind velocity was found to be proportional to DhlQ˙* on the basis of the dimensional analysis, and the empirical correlations of flame tilt angle were proposed to predict the flame tilt transition inside the compartment with fully horizontal opening in cross wind.