Effects of Fuel Location and Distribution on Full-Scale Underventilated Compartment Fires

Abstract

An experimental study was conducted to investigate the effects of fuel location and distribution on full-scale underventilated compartment fires in an ISO 9705 room. Heptane fuel was burned in three different fuel distributions: single centered burner (SCB), single rear burner (SRB), and two distributed burner (TDB). It was experimentally observed that variations in fuel placement did not significantly affect the global steady state underventilated fire characteristics such as fuel mass loss rate, heat release rate, combustion efficiency, global equivalence ratio, and global CO emission outside the compartment for these simple distributions. Supplemental numerical simulations reveal that the local characteristics of thermal and chemical environments depend on the fuel placement between the front and rear region inside the compartment. At the front region, the local fire characteristics were nearly the same regardless of fuel placement. Changes in fuel location and distribution resulted in changes in temperature, total heat flux, CO2, and CO volume fraction at the rear region. Burner placement led to changes in the mixture fraction, flow dynamics, and variations in CO production in the back of the compartment.