Study on characteristics of fire plume in building facade window under lateral blow

Abstract

The overflow of the flame plume from the window is the main cause of the vertical spread of the fire on the facade of the building. This paper considers the geometry of the window by taking measures to prevent the flame from propagating along the vertical wall. In this paper, a residential building is taken as an example to evaluate the flame plume characteristics through experimental tests and numerical simulations. The objective of the present study is to study the flame plume characteristics under the air blow on the outer window side of the building. The theoretical equations of the flame tilt angle, non-dimensional temperature and non-dimensional velocity are derived. A series of experimental tests were carried out in a reduced-scale building model corresponding to the changes of lateral blow ventilation velocity. Reduced scale numerical simulations were conducted to verify the experiments. Results showed that the flame tilt angle increases with ventilation velocity increases. Meanwhile, the experimental results were compared with the reduced-scale tests and numerical simulations. These showed a good agreement between experimental results and numerical simulations. All these findings provide theoretical basis for building fire prevention outside window.

The Influence of Confined Space Size on the Temperature Distribution Characteristics of Internal Window Plume from Well-Ventilated Compartment Fires

“…Both experimental and simulation results showed that for a given cavity width, heat release rate and geometry of the window opening were the two key factors in determining the plume trajectory. Li and Bai [23,24] studied the characteristics of window plumes based on the under-ventilated compartment fires. But, their research focused on the side wind effect on the flow behavior of the window plume under free working conditions.…”