Z. H. Zhou, W. Yao, X. K. Hu, R. Yuen and J. Wang (2016) Experimental study of the burning behavior of n-heptane pool fires at high altitude. Journal/Fire And Materials 40 80-88. [In English]
Web link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/fam.2270
Keywords: high altitude; n-heptane pool fire; burning intensity; heat release; rate; combustion efficiency; GLOBAL SOOT MODEL; HEAT RELEASE RATE; OXYGEN-CONSUMPTION; COMBUSTION; PRESSURE; VALIDATION; FLAMES

Abstract: The same configured calorimeters were built in Hefei (99.8kPa) and Lhasa (66.5kPa), respectively. Four sizes of round pans with diameters of 10, 15, 20, and 25cm were adopted to study the effect of high altitude on the burning behavior of liquid pool fires. Analysis on the burning rate obtained in this study and in the literature at different altitudes indicates that pressure fire modeling performs better than radiation fire modeling in correlating the burning intensity (burning rate per unit area) with pressure and pool diameter for cases under low ambient pressure. The study also shows that heat release rate and combustion efficiency decrease at higher altitude. For medium pool fires, the burning intensity and heat release rate are proportional to D-5/2, thus the combustion efficiency being independent on pool sizes but decreases at higher altitude by a factor approximate to the pressure ratio. Copyright (c) 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.