This study aims at better understanding the heat and mass transfer processes at the liquid fuel surface during a pool fire. It proposes new experimental data regarding the characteristics of the vertical temperature profile in the vicinity of the fuel surface in both liquid and gas phases. This analysis is based on pool fire experiments in open atmosphere, performed with various pool sizes from 0.1 m2 to 1 m2, and for four different fuels: ethanol, dodecane, hydrogenated tetra propylene (or HTP) and lubricant oil. The vertical temperature profiles are obtained from the measurements of the temperature within the pool and of the fuel mass loss rate. For ethanol, dodecane and HTP fuels, the temperature profile shows a thin upper layer of about 4 mm in the liquid fuel at constant temperature equal to the boiling one. For lubricant oil fuel, no constant temperature upper layer is observed. In addition, the temperature profiles allow characterizing the convective heat transfer in the gas phase through the determination of the temperature gradient. These measurements propose valuable information for the validation of fuel evaporation models, used for the numerical prediction of pool fires.

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]. Vol. 1: 21-26 April 2019, Saint Petersburg, Russia / 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>.