The 10th International Symposium on Fire Safety Science was held at the University of Maryland, College Park this past week and brought together an impressive group of scientists and engineers working on today’s fire science problems. Before I go on about the conference, a moment of sharing the exciting news that we have won both the Best Poster and Best Fire Science Image Awards! The image, “Fan of Fire” – Surface Inclination Effects on Upward Flame Spread and the poster “An Experimental Study of Upward Flame Spread over Inclined Fuels” with authors Michael J. Gollner, Xinyan Huang, Forman A. Williams, and Ali S. Rangwala won these awards! A description of the image shown is at the bottom and the poster can be viewed here.
“Fan of Fire” – Surface Inclination Effects on Upward Flame Spread
Michael Gollner, Xinyan Huang and Forman A. Williams
University of California, San Diego
Ali S. Rangwala
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
This “fan of fire” visually displays the effect gravity has on upward flame spread over thermally-thick materials. Starting from the left “ceiling fire”, as the inclination angle or tilt of a burning surface is increased underside flames transition from blue, well-mixed laminar flames into increasingly turbulent yellow flames on the topside that “lift” from the surface dramatically increasing the flame thickness. These images were taken perpendicular to the surface of a thick sample of Polymethyl Methacrylate mounted flush into insulation board as flames spread upward. These tests have helped in finding critical inclinations with maximum flame spread rates, burning rates and heat fluxes from the flame.