Heat release characteristics of ethanol-water mixtures: Small-scale experiments

Tuula Hakkarainen; Timo Korhonen; Jukka Vaari

doi:10.1016/j.firesaf.2017.03.071

Heat release characteristics of ethanol-water mixtures: Small-scale experiments

Tuula Hakkarainen, Timo Korhonen, Jukka Vaari

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Scientific › peer-review

11 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Small-scale pool fire tests of ethanol-water mixtures are described in this paper. The main goal of the tests was to obtain data on the heat release rate per unit area, the total heat release per unit area, and the effective heat of combustion of such mixtures with ethanol percentage of 20 vol% or more. The results can be utilised in the interpolation and extrapolation of these quantities for different ethanol percentages and irradiance levels. In addition, the results give information on the heat release of possible pool fires of alcoholic beverages in a retail store in the case of a fully developed fire. It was concluded that significant fire load is not formed until the ethanol percentage of the alcoholic beverage is ca. 20 vol% or more. The data reported can also be used as an input to simulations of ethanol-water mixture pool fires in the performance-based fire safety design.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	174-181
Journal	Fire Safety Journal
Volume	91
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.firesaf.2017.03.071
Publication status	Published - 1 Jul 2017
MoE publication type	A1 Journal article-refereed

Funding

This study was financed by Alko Inc which is gratefully acknowledged. The authors wish to thank Mr Janne Ahtoniemi (Alko Inc) for his constant support to make this research project possible, and Mr Jyri Pekkanen and Mr Jere Heikkinen (VTT Expert Services Ltd) for their skillful assistance in the cone calorimeter tests.

Keywords

heat release rate
effective heat of combustion
pool fires
ethanol-water mixture

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10.1016/j.firesaf.2017.03.071

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title = "Heat release characteristics of ethanol-water mixtures: Small-scale experiments",

abstract = "Small-scale pool fire tests of ethanol-water mixtures are described in this paper. The main goal of the tests was to obtain data on the heat release rate per unit area, the total heat release per unit area, and the effective heat of combustion of such mixtures with ethanol percentage of 20 vol% or more. The results can be utilised in the interpolation and extrapolation of these quantities for different ethanol percentages and irradiance levels. In addition, the results give information on the heat release of possible pool fires of alcoholic beverages in a retail store in the case of a fully developed fire. It was concluded that significant fire load is not formed until the ethanol percentage of the alcoholic beverage is ca. 20 vol% or more. The data reported can also be used as an input to simulations of ethanol-water mixture pool fires in the performance-based fire safety design.",

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AB - Small-scale pool fire tests of ethanol-water mixtures are described in this paper. The main goal of the tests was to obtain data on the heat release rate per unit area, the total heat release per unit area, and the effective heat of combustion of such mixtures with ethanol percentage of 20 vol% or more. The results can be utilised in the interpolation and extrapolation of these quantities for different ethanol percentages and irradiance levels. In addition, the results give information on the heat release of possible pool fires of alcoholic beverages in a retail store in the case of a fully developed fire. It was concluded that significant fire load is not formed until the ethanol percentage of the alcoholic beverage is ca. 20 vol% or more. The data reported can also be used as an input to simulations of ethanol-water mixture pool fires in the performance-based fire safety design.

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Heat release characteristics of ethanol-water mixtures: Small-scale experiments

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Keywords

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