Theoretical analysis and experimental study on critical conditions of backdraft

Backdraft is one of the most special behaviors of enclosure fires which has strong characteristics of concealment and suddenness. Once backdraft occurs in an enclosure, the fire will quickly engulf the entire enclosure and create a huge extrusive fireball out of the openings. In such circumstance, it is very difficult for people inside to evacuate and firefighters to enter to perform rescue. That’s why backdraft usually leads to serious consequences in both industrial and civil building fires. Experimental investigations on backdraft in enclosure fires caused by solid fuels have been carried out in the study, and the backdraft phenomenon has been reproduced in the small-scale enclosure fire tests. Based on the theories of heat transfer and fire dynamics, the theoretical model of conditions that backdraft occurs in enclosure fires has been established and the critical condition expressions have been deduced. Combining the results of theoretical analyses with those of experimental studies, a new backdraft criterion expressed by β, which is the ration between the combustible gas volume fraction and the lower explosive limit of the mixture, has been put forward.

► We theoretically deduce the critical condition expression that backdraft occurs.
► We do small-scale experiments on backdraft using wood and n-heptane as fuels.
► The backdraft criterion can be well identified by the ratio (β)
► Both the backdraft likelihood and the fireball length increase with the ratio.
► It is possible to obtain the critical conditions of backdraft for solid fuels.