On the fluid mechanics of fires

Fluid mechanics research related to fire is reviewed with a focus on canoni cal flows, multiphysics coupling aspects, and experimental and numerical te chniques. Fire is a low-speed, chemically reacting flow in which buoyancy p lays an important role. Fire research has focused on two canonical flows, t he reacting boundary layer and the reacting free plume. There is rich, mult ilateral, bidirectional coupling among fluid mechanics and scalar transport , combustion, and radiation. There is only a limited experimental fluid mec hanics database for fire owing to measurement difficulties in the harsh env ironment and to the focus within the fire community on thermal/chemical con sequences. Increasingly, computational fluid dynamics techniques are being used to provide engineering guidance on thermal/chemical consequences and t o study fire phenomenology.