Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

To predict the thermal radiation field surrounding a fire, it is necessary to know the configuration factor between the flame and the receiving target. This requirement has previously imposed restrictions on the range of geometries that could be selected to represent the shape of flames. A method has therefore been developed which will enable the configuration factor to be calculated for any flame shape and has been applied to a particular geometrical configuration that can be used to represent a wide range of flame shapes associated with large fires. The method also allows the alignment of a target that is subjected to the maximum incident thermal radiation to be identified. This is of particular interest when studying radiant heat transfer.