The flow turbulence also has a significant effect on the flame extinction conditions, resulting in a smaller extinction velocity for larger flow turbulence intensity. For concurrent flow flame spread, it is found that the flow turbulence decreases the flame spread rate for both floor and ceiling geometries, mainly as a result of the flame length shortening at high turbulence intensity. It is also found that flow velocity intensifies the spread of the flame. The experimental data of flame spread rate, flame length and surface heat flux agree well with the formula obtained from a simplified thermal model, indicating that the heat transfer from flame to solid surface is the dominant controlling mechanism in the turbulent concurrent flame spread and, that the gas phase chemical reaction is of secondary importance.

This textbook on fire dynamics provides a comprehensive description of fuels involved in fires, definitions related to fire, thermodynamics for fire calculations, basics of transport processes and fundamental aspects of combustion related to fire, physical descriptions of premixed and non-premixed flames, detailed analysis of the characteristics of fires from solid and liquid fuels, including ignition, spread and burning rates and physical aspects of fire plumes, compartment fires and dust fires. The contents also highlight fundamental aspects related to the evaporation of liquid fuels and pyrolysis of solid fuels which are explained with simplified mathematical expressions. The book includes pedagogical features such as worked examples to illustrate mathematical calculations involved in fire analysis and end-of-chapter review questions. This book proves useful for students, researchers and industry professionals alike.

The opposed flow flame spread over flat solid fuels is of fundamental importance to the field of fire safety. Several features of opposed flow flame spread are experimentally, numerically and analytically investigated.Thermally thick slab of PolyMethylMethAcrylate (PMMA) was used to study the effects of opposed flow velocity (8-58 cm/s) and fuel thickness (6.6, 12.1 and 24.5 mm). The experiments were conducted with a Narrow Channel Apparatus (NCA) at Michigan State University (MSU). The flame spread rate results show that the maximum flame spread occurs at a lower flow velocity for relatively thicker fuel. The peak flame spread rate for 6.6 mm, 12.1 mm and 24.5 mm occurs at 18.5 cm/s, 12.1 cm/s and 10.3 cm/s, respectively. Several flame spread regimes: thermal, chemical and regressive burning are identified from the results. Flame spread regimes are usually depend on the opposed flow velocity. However, the flame spread rate for newly found regressive burning regime is independent of flow velocities. Visual observation of the flame indicates that the flame intensity augments with flow velocity for all thicknesses of PMMA. The comparison between NCA data and legacy data for similar material (PMMA) and thickness (12.1 mm) demonstrated excellent agreement, subject to the extension of the numerical and theoretical analysis to include relevant features of the flame spread stretch rate theory. The results also demonstrated the effectiveness of the stretch rate theory for markedly different experimental configurations. Although thick slab is used to perform tests, complete burn out of the samples for thickness 6.6 and 12.1 mm are observed at high opposed flow velocities (30 ℗ł 5 cm/s and higher). On contrary, the thickest sample (24.5 mm) did not go through complete burning. This indicates the nature of surface regression and its impact on flame spread rate.Based on the results, it can be emphasized that the factors controlling the flame front advancement involves both flame spread and surface regression. So, the burnt samples at different opposed flow velocities of 24.5 mm thickness from flame spread study is measured for surface regression depth experimentally. A semi-empirical correlation is developed to relate the flame spread and regression and to determine the mass loss rate from the burnt fuel surface. Mass loss rate is also a key aspect of characterizing the flammability of materials. Results show that the power law dependency of mass loss rate changes with opposed flow velocity. A comparison of power law exponents of current results and results from literature are made. Results demonstrate that the power law dependency at flow velocity 8.2, 10.3 and 12 cm/s is -0.5 which show excellent agreement with legacy work.Next, another study is conducted on the post-flame-spread 24.5 mm PMMA sample, burnt at opposed flow velocity 15 cm/s. Visual observation of post-burn sample shows the formation of significant number of internal bubbles. Three samples of similar thickness burnt at similar condition were investigated for bubble count and size. Results indicate higher and smaller bubble presence near the leading edge of the flame compared to the trailing edge side. Comparison of bubble size distribution with several distribution function demonstrates that the bubble size shows good agreement with Log-normal distribution function.Finally, the transient regression rate has been investigated analytically and numerically. The effect of external heat flux simulating flame heat flux is analyzed for PMMA considering it as an ideal-vaporizing solid. Results indicate a strong dependency of heat flux on material regression for a time duration. After a certain time period, the regression rate became insensitive to heat flux change. A scale analysis is performed to compare the analytical-numerical regression rate results with experimental surface regression depth. The predicted regression followed a similar pattern as the experimental surface regression.