A computational and experimental study of ultra fine water mist as a total flooding agent

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) calculations were carried out to design total flooding fire tests in a 28 m3 compartment for an ultra fine water mist (<10 μm). The exit momentum of the mist produced by a proprietary ultrasonic generator technology was extremely low with a mist discharge velocity below 1 m/s. The mist was discharged with multiple floor outlets equally spaced around the centrally located 120 kW pool-like gas fire. The transport of mist and its interaction with the fire was simulated by Fluent, a commercial CFD model. Lagrangian Discrete Phase Model (DPM) was used for droplets. Simulation predicted extinguishment within 10 s with a mist delivery rate of 1 l/min. However, in total flooding fire tests conducted, extinction times were more than 5 min. Additional computations approximating the ultra fine mist (UFM) as a dense gas agreed well with the observed transport timescales of minutes indicating that UFM behaves like a gas. Further, the mist–fire interaction needs a multi-phase Euler–Euler approach with a droplet vaporization model.