Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

An experimental study has been made on the burning characteristics of liquid methanol soaked in porous beds of glass beads. In order to study the effects of the soil properties on the burning characteristics, experiments were carried out for several bead diameters. The consumption rates of methanol and the temperature profiles in the porous beds were measured. The results showed that the total weight of the methanol consumed was only about half of the initial weight and the consumption rate decreased with time. The total weight of the consumed methanol and the consumption rate of methanol increased with decreasing bead diameter. The temperature profiles indicated that the dry region in a porous bed, in which only methanol vapor was assumed to exist, expanded downward with time. The discrepancy between the lower boundary of the dry region and the liquid level evaluated on the basis of methanol consumption for small beads suggested that the liquid moved upward by a capillary force. A simplified heat transfer model was proposed for large beads and the predicted results agreed qualitatively with the experimental ones. The consumption rate on large beads bed was inferred to be controlled mainly by the heat transfer in the porous bed.