Initial fuel depth effect on the burning characteristics of thin-layer pool fire in a confined enclosure Bench scale experiment and thermal equilibrium analysis

This study reveals the effect of the initial fuel depth on the burning characteristics of thin-layer pool fire in a confined enclosure. A thin-layer heptane pool with 10 cm diameter was employed in the cone calorimeter to obtain the fundamental burning characteristics of pool fire in the free burning atmosphere under the initial fuel depths. Then, the different initial liquid depths (from 5 to 30 mm) of heptane pool fires were adopted to explore the burning characteristics in the confined enclosure with a central horizontal opening. Several parameters such as the burning rate, the flame height, the oxygen concentration at extinction time and smoke temperature distribution were investigated. Results show that the burning rate presents the different trends with the increase in the fuel depth in the free burning atmosphere and confined enclosure. The fuel depth presents an influence on the pool fire burning characteristic parameters. Moreover, the theoretical thermal equilibrium analysis in the confined enclosure was also studied to obtain relationship between the combustion coefficient and depth coefficient.