Spread and burning behavior of continuous spill fires

Abstract

Spill fire experiments with continuous discharge on a fireproof glass sheet were conducted to improve the understanding of spill fire spread and burning. Ethanol was used as the fuel and the discharge rate was varied from 2.8mL/s to 7.6mL/s. Three ignition conditions were used in the experiments; no ignition, instantaneous ignition and delayed ignition. The spread rate, regression rate, penetrated thermal radiation and the temperature of the bottom glass were analyzed. The experiments clearly show the entire spread process for spill fires. Further, the regression rate of spill fires at the quasi-steady burning was lower than that of pool fires and the ratio of the spill fires’ regression rate to the pool fires’ regression rate was found to be approximately 0.89. With respect to the radiative penetration and the heat conduction between the fuel layer and the glass, a regression rate expression for spill fires was developed based on some modifications on existing expressions for pool fires. In addition, a complete phenomenological model for spill fires was developed by combining the characteristics of spread and burning. The model was verified by the experimental data and found to predict the spread process for spill fires with reasonable accuracy.