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In situ burning (ISB) in the Arctic waters is a practical countermeasure to oil spill incidents, during which special ice cavity pool fires are naturally formed. However, most previous studies have focused on the burning of these fires in a quiescent environment. For the first time, the effect of cross air flow on burning behavior of ice cavity pool fires was experimentally revealed in the present study. Experiments were conducted by employing ice cavities of different depths (4, 6, and 8 cm) with the same diameter of 5 cm for various cross flow air speeds (0~1.5 m/s). It was found that the cross flow can significantly change the average mass loss rate (total burned mass over time). Three phases are identified in terms of the transient mass loss rate to characterize the burning behavior of n-heptane fuel: first, a slight decrease, then a continuous increase to reach a peak value and finally a rapid decrease until extinction. This behavior is different from that of the burning of pool fires in ice cavities in still air which has just two phases. In still air, the burning efficiency increased with the increase of the depth. With increase of cross flow air speed, the burning efficiency first increased then decreased with a maximum value at a wind speed of around 0.6 m/s. Asymmetric expansion of ice cavity in cross flow of air was quantified: the downstream expansion length is much larger than the upstream expansion length. However, the transverse-stream expansion length is almost identical to the upstream expansion length even with cross flow. The present study provides basic new data and understanding of burning behavior (burning rate, burning efficiency and ice cavity expansion) of ice cavity pool fire in cross flows, which is essential concerning ISB in Arctic regions with wind.

International Seminar on Fire and Explosion Hazards (9; 2019; Saint Petersburg, Russia). Proceedings of the Ninth International Seminar on Fire and Explosion Hazards [Электронный ресурс]: 21-26 April 2019, Saint Petersburg, Russia. Vol. 1 / Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, Autonomous Non-Profit Organization "Fire and Explosion Safety", Gefest Holding Ltd ; [edited by A. Snegirev [et al.]. — Электрон. текстовые дан. (1 файл : 118 Мб). — Saint Petersburg, 2019. — Загл. с титул. экрана. — Свободный доступ из сети Интернет (чтение, печать, копирование). — Adobe Acrobat Reader 7.0. — <URL:http://elib.spbstu.ru/dl/2/k19-45.pdf>. — <URL:http://doi.org/10.18720/SPBPU/2/k19-45>.