Experimental study of ejected fire plume from an opening under facing wind passing through the roof

This paper presents an experimental study and analysis of the ejected fire plume from an opening at the top floor of the compartment under facing wind condition. The experiments are conducted by a reduced-scale cubic compartment. An opening facing the wind tunnel exit is set at the center of the compartment side wall. The temperature at the opening and inside the compartment, critical heat release rate for flame ejection, ejected flame morphologic characteristic parameters are measured and quantified by thermocouples and a digital video camera. It's found that the temperature and critical heat release rate for flame ejection first increase then decrease with increasing of facing wind speed. The flame height, flame depth and flame horizontal length increase with heat release rate. The flame depth decreases, flame horizontal length increases as the facing wind speed, while flame height shows a complex evolution with facing wind. A physical model is developed considering mechanisms of flame ejection initial horizontal momentum, flame buoyancy, wind momentum and non-dimensional mass fuel supply rate. The proposed model correlates the experimental data of flame morphologic parameters well. This work considering the practical fire scenario provides an important knowledge supplement on the classical building fire dynamics.