Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

The study establishes a similarity relationship controlling the buoyant turbulent boundary layer combustion of wall fires. Measurements of soot deposition onto glass rods allow one to infer the characteristic thickness, ? S , of propylene flames at different heights, z , and mass transfer rates, m& ?? . The normalized flame thickness, ? S z , is successfully correlated by the overall fuel to air mass ratio of the flames, ? . Similarly, ? , correlates the measured boundary layer temperature profiles of the flames normal to the wall. It correlates measurements of the outward directed radiance, Nr from the same propylene wall fires with a uniform effective flame radiation temperature, Tf , and uniform soot absorption/emission coefficient being independent of both height, z , and fuel mass transfer rate, m?? . Finally the same fuel to air ratio, ? , correlates, here for the first time, the LDV velocity measurements of Most et al for turbulent ethane wall flames performed at Factory Mutual Research in 1982. The data presented here are suitable for development of analytical and CFD models of turbulent wall fires.