Effects of confined distance and wire spacing on flame spread over double electrical wires for the layout design in buildings

Abstract

In this study, the flame merging and flame spread behaviors over two identical parallel electrical wires (the ratios of copper core diameter to entire wire diameter are: 6mm/10 mm and 8mm/12 mm for typeⅠand typeⅡ, respectively) were experimentally investigated under different wire spacings (3∼18 mm) and confined distances(10∼30 mm). The results show that the smaller confined distance D will promote the merging, making the wire spacing s increase for the fully merging. With the increase of D, the flame width and flame spread rate Vf will increase.While the flame height will be stretched at smaller D. And Vf is larger than that of single wire at the same D for different wire spacings.The interesting finding is that a pool fire is formed at the middle of the wire spacing when s and D are small, which will enhance the flame spread.The heat flux feedback of components including of the conductive heat flux q˙c″, the first single flame heat flux q˙f1″, the second flame heat flux q˙f2″, the pool fire heat flux q˙pf″ and the gypsum board heat flux q˙g″ are quantitatively analyzed. At the intermittent and non merging stages, the convective and radiative heat fluxes q˙vf2″ and q˙rf2″ will decrease largely due to the interaction weakened greatly. Based on the heat transfer analysis, a flame spread model is established, which can well predict the flame spread rate.These findings can give the useful suggestions on the layout design of electrical wires in confined space in buildings.