Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

An experimental study is presented of a full- scale compartment fire. The room is 10 m long, 3.75 m wide and 2.50 m high. One end of the room is closed and the other one has an opening of 0.8 x 0.8 m² in its center. A pool of TBP/TPH liquid fuel (1 m²) is placed at 2 m from the closed end in order to simulate an accidental fire of solvents in nuclear plants. These particular conditions result in a fire that is controlled by natural ventilation and the whole room being quickly invaded by combustion products and fuel gases. The temperature in the compartment quickly increases up to about 560 OC. It is then observed that the flame migrates from the original fuel surface towards the opening over a distance of 8 m with a displacement velocity ranging from 4 to 8 cm/s. This flame presents characteristics similar to those of the ghosting flame described by Sugawa et al. Then the fire stabilizes at the opening of the room until there is no more liquid fuel available in the pool fire. The collected experimental data consists of temperatures, concentrations of chemical species (02, CO, CO), pressure in the fire room and recordings by means of a video camera.