Partitioning of Convective and Radiative Heat Fluxes Absorbed by a Lumped Body Engulfed in a Diffusion Flame

A simple model that divides the heat flux to the bodies engulfed in a diffusion flame into different components, namely radiation and convection is studied. Different sizes of brass and stainless steel (SS 304L) rods varying from 25.4 mm to 50.8 mm in length and 25.4 mm in diameter are used as specimens in this study. Experiments are conducted with each body inside a diesel pool fire of different diameters, namely 0.5 m, 0.7 m and 1.0 m. The temperature history of the body engulfed in a pool fire is measured to compute the thermal energy absorbed by the lumped body. Using an energy balance, the total energy is divided into three different components. The gas velocity in the flame is measured to be 1.53 m/s to 1.79 m/s for the diesel pool fires of 0.5 m to 1.0 m in diameter. The dominant mode of heat transfer in this study is radiative in nature. This simple model is reasonably able to predict the heat flux incident on to the lumped bodies engulfed by diesel pool fires using the measured temperature history. A three dimensional formulation for an axi-symmetric pool fire of a measured flame shape, flame temperature and a gray flame absorption coefficient is employed to predict the temperature of the body engulfed in pool fires. This formulation has to be modified to capture the absolute temperature values of the flame.