Study of Flame Spread Over JP8 Using 2-D Holographic Interferometry

ABSTRACT: Despite the widespread use of JP8 as a transportation fuel, and hence its importance to fire safety in the event of an accident, the characteristics of flame spread over JP8 are not well known. In order to better estimate fire growth rates, flame spread rates over JP8 and n-butanol were measured in this study as functions of initial liquid temperature. A Holographic Interferometry (HI) technique was employed in conjunction with a photographic recording sys-tem to rapidly detect small temperature changes over an area including the liquid and gas phases. The laboratory-scale experiments were performed using the same apparatus employed in previous studies of flame spread over alcohol to al-low comparison of the two sets of results. Flame spread data were obtained for JP8 fuel as a function of initial fuel temperatures between 15°C and 40°C. The four common spread patterns (pseudo-uniform, pulsating, uniform, and superflash) observed for alcohol by Akita [1] were also observed for flame spread over JP8. In order to estimate the heat flux carried by the subsurface convective flow, an energy balance in the liquid phase was performed by considering a con-trol volume of the liquid ahead of the flame. From this analysis, the liquid-phase *Author to whom correspondence should be addressed