Download (PDF 864 KB): https://research.fs.usda.gov/download/treesearch/44781.pdf
Abstract
Wind tunnel laboratory fires spreading through laser-cut cardboard fuel beds were instrumented and analyzed for physical processes associated with spread. Flames in the span-wise direction appeared as a regular series of peaks-and-troughs that scaled directly with flame length. Flame structure in the stream-wise direction fluctuated with the forward advection of coherent parcels that originated near the rear edge of the flame zone. Thermocouples arranged longitudinally in the fuel beds revealed the frequency of these temperature fluctuations decreased with flame length but increased with wind speed. The downstream extent of these fluctuations scaled with Froude number and flame zone depth. These behaviors are remarkably similar to those of boundary layers, suggesting a dominant role for buoyancy in determining wildland fire spread.
Citation
Finney, Mark A.; Forthofer, Jason; Grenfell, Isaac C.; Adam, Brittany A.; Akafuah, Nelson K.; Saito, Kozo. 2013. A study of flame spread in engineered cardboard fuelbeds: Part I: Correlations and observations. In: Seventh International Symposium on Scale Modeling (ISSM-7); Hirosaki, Japan; 6-9 August, 2013. International Scale Modeling Committee. 10 p.
