Experimental investigation of the burning characteristics of aviation fuel under atmospheric crosswind conditions

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Pool fires caused by leaks of aviation fuels such as RP-5 can result in severe catastrophes. This problem is especially more pronounced in ships and oil tankers. Accordingly, investigation of wind-exposed pool fires is of great significance to the safety of ships. In the present study, an experimental platform was designed and constructed to study the evolutions of flame shape, burning rate, and downstream gas temperature in square aviation fuel pool fires exposed to crosswind. In this regard, different pool side lengths (D = 0.32–0.55 m) and crosswind speeds (V = 0–6.5 m/s) were analyzed. The obtained results show that as the wind speed increased, the flame length and flame tilt angle increased first and then stabilized, and the maximum values almost reached 2.5 m and 90°, respectively. Based on the force analysis, the normalized flame length (L/LV=0) and tangent of flame tilt angle (tanθ) can be expressed by the power function of Forde number (Fr). It is found that the burning rate grew steadily first, followed by a level-off value, and the maximum value is 0.0481kg/(m2.s). Accordingly, a piecewise function based on the boundary theory was proposed to estimate the burning rate. The performed analyses reveal that the downstream gas temperature increased first to a peak value (within 1000 °C) and then decreased. A modified exponential correlation of the decay of the downstream gas temperature (ΔT/ΔTpeak) with the fire distance (x/D') was developed in terms of the heat transfer balance.