Facade flame height ejected from an opening of fire compartment under external wind

This paper presents an experimental study and analysis on the facade flame height ejected from an opening of fire compartment under external wind. Experiments are carried out in a reduced-scale model consisting of a cubic fire compartment with a vertical facade wall. An opening is designed at the center of one sidewall of the fire compartment at the facade side and subjected to external wind (normal to the opening) provided by a wind tunnel. The facade flame heights are measured by a CCD camera for five different openings at various fuel supply heat release rates and wind speeds. It is found that the facade flame height decreases with increasing external wind speed. A scaling analysis is performed to interpret this behavior based on the change of air entrainment into the flame from both the facing-facade and parallel-facade directions caused by the external wind flow. A global model incorporating the external wind speed, the two characteristic length scales of the opening as well as the dimensionless excess heat release rate is developed for describing the facade flame height of various conditions. The proposed model correlates the experimental data well.