Dimensionless Analysis of Heat, Momentum and Mass Transfer in a Pool Fire

Abstract

Statistical analysis about major accidents indicate that pool fires are among the most frequently encountered major accidents in the Chemical Industry, cause the highest material and economical losses. The CFD simulation has become an important research tool in this type of fires. Also hydrocarbons are first materials to be ignited the first, in this paper, the phenomenon denominated as hydrocarbon pool fire is studied. The hydrodynamics behavior considering the turbulent flow in transient regime were coupled with mass and heat transfer transport including a generation of mas and energy due to a combustion reaction, where the chemical kinetics considering the heptane as a surrogate compound for gasoline. The results are validated comparing them with previously published experimental data, and show the presence of gradients of concentration, temperature as well as velocity. In this type of scenarios, there are numerous dimensionless numbers which can be used to describe the phenomena. These dimensionless groups provide the advantage of being able to compare behaviors at different scales, where space and time variations are generally present. As a result these dimensionless groups can be used in scaling analysis procedures.