Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

It is important to know the behavior of a large-scale oil pool fire, so a large-scale oil pool fire experiment was carried on in JAPAN on May 30, 1981. It was carried out by filling excavated storage tanks measuring 30 m, 50 m and 80 m in diameter each with water of about 200 mm in depth, floating kerosene to a depth of about 20 mm above the water and burning the kerosene. Measurements were made on the flame temperature, radiant heat, partial radiant heat, burning rate of a hydrocarbon pool fire, composition of gaseous combustion products, naturally-induced air flow velocity and flame shape, seven items in all. The experiment results clearly indicate that the results of a small-scale experiment on a storage tank whose diameter is less than 10 m cannot be extrapolated to a large-scale oil pool fire