When a liquid combustible is accidentally spilled, it will soak into the soil or a porous material such as a mat or carpet on the floor. In order to investigate characteristics of the fire in such a case, a series of studies has been performed of the flame spread over solid-liquid combustible mixtures. The present experimental study is a part of the series and concerns flame spread over a layer of glass beads soaked with a decane-hexane mixture. The objective of the present study is to elucidate the effect of a volatile component on the flame spread phenomena.
The flame spread experiments were carried out using a steel tray of 60 cm long, 3.5 cm wide, and 4.0 cm deep, filled with glass beads and decane-hexane mixture. Ignition was performed by using five cotton wicks set near one end of the tray in a row parallel to the end brim. The temperature and hexane-concentration distributions in the solid-liquid layer were measured respectively with five 0.05-mm-diam. Pt/Pt-Rh13% thermocouples and five sampling micro-probes connecting to a gas analyzer.
Under the conditions of the present experimental study, the flame spread rate was shown to be a several cm/min even if the flash temperature (measured by a closed-cup method) of the combustible liquid mixture before soaked was below the room temperature. This is attributable to the reduction of the hexane concentration just below the layer surface due to the slow diffusion of hexane in the layer. In the vicinity of the leading flame edge, the hexane concentration just below the layer surface was found to increase. This increase of hexane concentration is inferred to be caused by the diffusion rate increase of hexane with the layer temperature. The hexane concentration in the layer below the leading flame edge depends on the diffusion transfer in the layer, and the diffusion rate is closely related to the layer temperature. Consequently, the flame spread rate depends strongly on the heat transfer in the layer even if the combustible mixture includes a certain amount of hexane, a volatile component.
抄録全体を表示