C. Diblasi, INFLUENCES OF SAMPLE THICKNESS ON THE EARLY TRANSIENT STAGES OF CONCURRENT FLAME SPREAD AND SOLID BURNING, Fire safety journal, 25(4), 1995, pp. 287-304
The effects of solid thickness on the initial stages of concurrent fla
me spread are studied through numerical simulation. The two-dimensiona
l mathematical formulation of the problem is based on the fully ellipt
ic, reactive Navier-Stokes equations coupled to energy and mass conser
vation equations for a charring solid. For all fuel thicknesses, unifo
rm burn-out, pyrolysis and flame propagation rates are approached afte
r an accelerative stage. As with the opposed-flow problem, three main
regimes of spread rate are established based on the dependence on fuel
thickness. The first (kinetic) regime, where spread rates increase wi
th the thickness, is established for samples below 0.008 x 10(-2) m. B
oth frame and pyrolysis lengths are very short. In the second (thermal
ly thin) regime, the spread rates decrease as the solid thickness is i
ncreased while the flame and the pyrolysis regions become successively
larger. Finally, as the fuel thickness is increased above 0.5 x 10(-2
) m, the thermally thick regime, signified by constant spread rates, i
s simulated. As no experimental measurements of spread rate dependency
on the thickness of charring materials are available, numerical predi
ctions are compared with a thermal theory to assess its validity limit
s. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.