Abstract
This paper presents a novel ground-based methodology to investigate an important characteristic of fire in space. Based on the concept of scale modeling - Grashof-number (Gr) similarity -; the transport process found in small-scale fire in low-pressure (on earth) should be similar to that in space. Our similarity approach has successfully achieved to form the nearly-spherical shape of flame over the small rod-shaped combustibles (e.g., electric cable) by adopting the low pressure. Important finding is that the flame spread rate becomes faster in low-pressure than that in the normal-pressure and this is exactly the same with what found in low gravity experiment. This paper demonstrates the advantage of the scale modeling to predict the extraordinary fire in a simple way.
