External Wind Effect on Flame Behavior Inside and Outside a Compartment with Opposing Openings

This paper is to quantify the external wind effects on flame behavior evolutions inside and outside a compartment with opposing openings. Temperature profiles at the windward and leeward corners inside the compartment as well as the external flame trajectories were investigated. Experimental results show that the flame shape inside the compartment changes from the windward symmetrical rotation flame to the leeward deflection flame, as the heat release rate increases or the external wind velocity decreases. It results from the competition between the buoyancy force of fire plume and the wind-driven flow field. Two external flame shapes, the horizontally ejected fire and spill-like plume, take place in sequence with decreasing wind velocity. The trajectory of horizontally ejected fire is perpendicular to the building façade. By validating coordinate values of trajectory databases for the spill-like plume, prediction correlations for the trajectory are developed with a notion of the physical process.