Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

A series of measurements and visualization to investigate the interaction of water sprays with pool fires is presented. Fire source is a small-scale pool burner with methanol, ethanol and gasoline. Measurements of temperatures, O2, CO2, and CO concentrations along the plume centerline are carried out to observe pool fire structures without water sprays. Visualization by the Ar-ion laser sheet shows flow pattern of droplets of the sprays above the pool fires. It is observed that in the case of methanol and ethanol, water sprays continuously penetrate into the center of fuel surfaces. The gasoline pool fire allows intermittent penetration of water sprays because of pulsating characteristics of the gasoline flame. To evaluate the cooling effect of the fuel surface by the sprays, the temperature was measured at the fuel surface. As soon as the mists reach the fuel surface of methanol and ethanol, the temperatures of the fuel surface decrease rapidly below the boiling point, and then the fires are extinguished. Due to the application of mist upon the gasoline fire, though the fuel temperature decrease abruptly at the time of the injection, such a rapid decrease do not continue till the extinction point.