An experimental and modeling study of continuous liquid fuel spill fires on water

• Burning fuel spread in continuous oil spill was studied by large-scale experiment.
• Steady burning area is proportional to discharge flow rate.
• Ignition delay time doesn't affect the steady burning area.
• Modified viscous burning fuel spread model was developed.
• Heat flux computed by solid flame model agrees with the measured data.

The spread of burning fuel spilled from oil product containers during offshore storage and transportation may cause large damage and trigger further accidents. Some analytical models already exist to predict the spread and burning behavior of liquid fuel spill fires, however, few experimental studies have been conducted to verify the model results. In this paper, continuous n-heptane spill fire experiments were conducted in a rectangular trench covered with water. The burning area, fuel spread rate, and thermal flux with different discharge flow rates and ignition delay times were investigated by both experimental and modeling means. The spill fire burning area, with 5 typical phases during burning, has a quasi-steady value which is directly proportional to the discharge rate but irrelevant to the ignition delay times. The steady burning rate, as the ratio of discharge rate over burning area, was estimated. A spread model was modified to simulate the spread of continuous liquid fuel spill fires in a one-dimensional channel, based on the balance between gravity and viscous forces. A cuboid solid flame model was used to compute the thermal flux from spill fires. The burning fuel spread and the heat flux calculated by the models agree with the experimental results.