Assessement of FDS 6 Simulation Results for a Large-Scale Ethanol Pool Fire

A numerical study is presented on the prediction of the burning rate (and thus the heat release rate) of a large-scale ethanol pool fire (0.81 m x 0.70 m) using the Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS 6). The steady-state burning rate is reasonably well predicted and the results are insensitive to the mesh resolution when cells of less than 5 cm are used. Furthermore, it is shown numerically that the lip height could increase the burning rate up to 50% in comparison to the flush configuration (i.e., no lip) as found in a previous experimental study. Finally, a simplified 1D calculation confirms that the incident radiative flux on the fuel surface is the dominant heat transfer mode and contributes by approximately 70% to the fuel burning rate.