Experimental and Numerical Studies of N–Heptane Pool Fires

Pool fires may occur in industries and facilities handling flammable fuels and solvents triggering losses to life and property. This work reports experimental and numerical investigations of n–heptane pool fires considering three square pools of sizes 8, 12 and 16 cm. Average mass loss rates have been measured in experiments using three trials. Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) is used to simulate these pool fires to compliment the experimental data. Time averaged mass loss rates predicted numerically are validated against the experimental results. The temporal behaviour of these flames is analyzed systematically using contours of oxygen mass fraction and temperature, and velocity vectors. In this study, the instantaneous flame heights are determined by analyzing the contours of n–heptane mass fractions across the entire burning duration. Further, the heights are also determined by locating the points where the flames are 50% intermittent.