A MULTIPHASE FORMULATION FOR FIRE PROPAGATION IN HETEROGENEOUS COMBUSTIBLE MEDIA

A general formulation based on a weighting average procedure is develo ped for describing the fire-induced behaviour of a multiphase, reactiv e and radiative medium. The complete set of the resulting equations sh ould be used as the basic one for later studies, especially in the fra mework of wildland fires. For the moment, in order to demonstrate the capability of the general formulation, a simplified model, named zerot h-order model, in which some physical phenomena (such as char combusti on, second-order terms, particle motion) are neglected is presented. I n the frame of this simplified model, reverse and forward one-dimensio nal fire propagations through an heterogeneous medium composed of fixe d fuel particles are studied numerically. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Lt d.