Experiments and Numerical Simulations of Flow Patterns of Water Droplets From Fire-Fighting Helicopters

Abstract

In large forest fires over wide areas, aerial fire fighting with water drop from helicopters has been widely employed in the world. After the large earthquake fires in Japan, possibilities were raised to employ similar fire-fighting technique to city fires. However, forest and city fires were inherently different in nature and require different fire-fighting implementations. Since the city fires are concentrated in extent and isolated, thus requiring more dense water application to extinguish fires. As a result, accurate engineering data on the optimum water application relative to a given fire are critically needed to design fire-fighting strategies. This study describes the experiments carried out in open fields using real-life helicopters, in comparison with the 3-D numerical simulations. Numerical simulations can provide reasonable flow patterns of the water droplets from the helicopters, and can be used as a design tool for implementing the fire-fighting technique for real city fires.