Pool fires – An empirical correlation

This study presents the experimental procedure and results of highly controlled pool fire tests, in a quiescent environment, designed to accurately measure the fuel burning rate and, consequently for sufficiently large pools, the thermal radiation flux back to the fuel surface. Steps were taken to minimize the effects of in-depth absorption of flame radiation, circulation within the liquid, and changes in fuel composition due to distillation of more volatile fuel components. With these precautions, focus is placed on gas phase phenomena controlling the heat release rate per unit pool area. The primary variables considered are: pool diameter, heat of gasification, flame sootiness as characterized by the inverse of the fuel smoke-point flame height, and, to a lesser extent, absorption of flame radiation by the fuel vapors just above the liquid surface. Results reported herein agree well with literature values for experiments conducted under similarly controlled conditions. A simple empirical formula is developed based primarily on heat of gasification and smoke point and is shown to correlate the mass burning rate within 9%, on average, of the experimental data.