Experimental study of the burning characteristics of dead forest fuels
A. Sahila
A , H. Boutchiche A , D. X. Viegas B , L. Reis B , C. Pinto B and N. Zekri A *
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A Université des Sciences et de la Technologie d’Oran, LEPM BP 1505 El Mnaouer Oran, Algeria.
B Univ Coimbra, ADAI, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Rua Luís Reis Santos, Pólo II, 3030‐788 Coimbra, Portugal.
* Correspondence to: nouredine.zekri@univ-usto.dz
International Journal of Wildland Fire 32(4) 593-609 https://doi.org/10.1071/WF22088
Submitted: 9 June 2022 Accepted: 4 January 2023 Published: 3 February 2023
© 2023 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of IAWF. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)
Abstract
Background: A deeper physical understanding of flame behaviour is necessary to make more reliable predictions about forest fire dynamics.
Aims: To study the container size effect on the combustion characteristics of herbaceous fuels.
Methods: Dead samples were put in cylindrical containers of different sizes, and were ignited at the lowest circumference of the basket in the absence of wind.
Key results: In the growth phase, there is an anomalously fast relaxation of the fuel mass accompanied by a super-diffusion of the emitted gas species, whereas in the decay phase, there is a stretched exponential relaxation and the gas species sub-diffuse through the porous fuel. The crossover between these two anomalous processes occurs when the flame is fully developed. Thomas’s correlation between flame height and fuel bed size, and the two-third power law dependence of the normalised flame height on the Froude number, fit the experimental data well. The flame height variation with burning rate exhibits a hysteresis cycle, implying the existence of memory effects on flame formation.
Conclusions: The observed relaxation regimes and hysteresis cycle seem to drive fire dynamics and behaviour.
Implications: Further investigation of the influence of the fuel geometry and porosity on these properties is necessary.
Keywords: air velocity and temperature profiles, anomalous diffusion, anomalous relaxation, burning rate, flame height, forest fires, hysteresis cycle, turbulent diffusion flame.
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