DOI: 10.1615/ICHMT.2004.RAD-4
ISBN Print: 978-1-56700-207-2
ISSN Online: 2642-5629
ISSN Flash Drive: 2642-5661
ROLE OF RADIATION IN EXTINGUISHING PROPERTIES OF WATER MIST
ABSTRACT
Among the main mechanisms which act together to extinguish fires when using a water mist : heat extraction, oxygen displacement and radiant heat attenuation, the last one has received the less attention. For this reason, the present authors, a few years ago, began a systematic and comprehensive study specifically devoted to radiant heat feedback to the fuel surface that play a key role in burning rate control. They reported small-scale experiments permiting analysis of the influence of a mist addition as an opposed flow to a liquid (heptane) pool fire.
The present work is an extension of the effort devoted to a better characterisation of the incident radiant flux to the burning surface. More attention being paid to equipment, experiments more properly and accurately conducted give an order of magnitude estimate in essential agreement with a radiation computation based on the mappings, previously obtained, of the two major parameters, temperature and extinction coefficient, that determine the thermal radiation of the flame. An important information is the confirmation that radiation attenuation cannot be identified as a predominant mechanism of extinguishment.