Computational Modeling of Radiative, Thermal, and Kinetic Regimes of Flame Spread.

摘要

The purpose of this thesis presented is to analyze flame spread over thermally thin solid fuels in three regimes of flame spread process; radiative, thermal, and kinetic regimes. The analyses have been performed using a comprehensive two dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model written in Fortran language developed by Bhattacharjee. Flame spread over thermally thin fuels in quiescent and opposing flow microgravity environments is investigated. An extinction study is performed with different computational domain sizes for a set of fuel thicknesses to understand the effect of domain size on the extinction velocities in the radiative and kinetic regimes. The effect of development length boundary layer is studied in both radiative and kinetic regimes. It is found that flame spread rate, flame size, flame temperature, blow-off and radiative extinction velocities depend on the development length and the boundary layer created by the opposing flow. A correlation between the extinction development length and opposed flow velocity is established. Flame spread over open cell phenolic foam is investigated in detail in a quiescent microgravity environment. The critical fuel thickness is found at different oxygen concentrations and compared to those for PMMA. Pressure, oxygen concentration, and radiation studies are also performed to analyze the flame spread over foam. To understand the effect of radiation on flame spread, the CFD model is coupled with two different radiation models in a microgravity environment. The first radiation model includes gas to surface conduction, gas to environment radiation loss, gas to surface feedback radiation, and surface to environment radiation loss. The second model only excludes gas to surface radiation feedback. The results obtained using these two models are compared with the CFD results; one with radiation completely neglected, and one with only gas to surface radiation feedback neglected. Flame spread in downward configuration is also studied using the radiation models in a quiescent normal gravity environment. The radiation effects, fuel width effect, and kinetic effects are analyzed for different fuel thicknesses.