Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
4924817 Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics 2017 15 Pages PDF
Abstract
Aerodynamics of the firebrands' flight is fundamental to fire spotting; yet, this phenomenon is relatively poorly understood. Variants of Tachikawa's transport models have been developed for different shapes of debris but, only simplified versions are implemented in firebrand transport models. Failure to include lift and rotational forces reduces the problem to a two-dimensional one, in contrast to the 3D trajectories observed. As such, many studies may have under-/overestimated the flight distance and failed to capture the spotting distribution, accurately. Also, there is virtually no detailed quantitative experimental validation available for rod-like debris transport models. Hence, a set of free-fall experiments with non-combusting model firebrands were run in the absence of cross-wind. The results are employed for verification and performance evaluation of a 3D deterministic 6-Degrees-Of-Freedom (DOF) rod-like debris transport model. It is shown that a transport model must include the complete 6-DOF aerodynamics of the debris for estimating the flight characteristics, such that results are not statistically significantly different from the experimental data. The findings have applications beyond firebrand transport, as they represent the most comprehensive experimental data set and analysis of rod-like debris transport, currently in the literature.
Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering Energy Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment
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