Investigation of the combustion law of delayed ignition ethanol spill fire in longitudinal ventilation

Abstract

The environmental conditions under which sustained spill fire accidents occur are complex and variable, and this paper investigates experimentally the effect of longitudinal ventilation in tunnel on the combustion law of delayed ignition spill fires. Experiments on instantaneous ignition and spill fires with delay of 10 s, 20 s, and 30 s were carried out using ethanol at a spill rate of 78 ml/min under a longitudinal wind speed of 0–1.5 m/s in tunnel. The results show that with the increase of longitudinal wind speed the flame inclination of the spill fire increases and the flame length first increases and then decreases. By analysing the force on the fuel layer and the force on the flame, and combining with the previous research, the prediction models of flame length and flame inclination were established. In the case of longitudinal wind speed, the spill fire burning area increases and then decreases with the increase of wind speed, and there is a critical wind speed, which is related to the delayed ignition time. The heat loss of the substrate in the longitudinal wind and the influence of the flame morphology on the thermal radiation feedback of the flame were considered, and it was found that the heat transfer of the fuel layer with the increase of the wind speed was gradually transitioned from the radiation dominated to the convection dominated. It was found that there was a general trend of increasing combustion rate with increasing wind speed and delayed ignition time.