Experimental Study of Pool Fire Burning Behaviors in Ceiling Vented Ship Cabins

Experiments were carried out in a ceiling vented ship cabin, with its inner dimension of 3 m x 3 m x 1.95 m, in order to investigate the effect of ceiling vent size (0 ∼ 0.3 m2) on the burning behaviors of a D30 cm heptane pool fire. Boiling burning, self-extinction, flame oscillation and ghosting flame were observed during the experiments. Results show that ceiling vent size had great influence on the fire self-extinction. A ventilation factor of ceiling vented compartment Φ was defined to determine the ceiling vent size. According to this factor, the fires can be classified into three extinction modes: Self-extinction mode, transition mode and Burn-out mode. Fuel consumed ratio, burning time and fuel mass loss rate of different modes were also analyzed in the paper.