United States Department of Transportation
i
Improving Freight Fire Safety: Modifying Droplet Behavior to Minimize Ignition
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2014-03-01
[PDF-6.08 MB]
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NTL Classification:NTL-FREIGHT-FREIGHT
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Abstract:Hydrocarbon drops impacting on a flat solid surface were computationally studied to identify the key issues in the dynamics of drop spreading. The experimental data available for diesel, methanol, and glycerin were used, and a general empirical expression (in terms of the Ohnesorge number) was constructed that accurately described the spreading regime. For the simulation part, the drop spreading process was studied numerically with a volume-of-fluid (VOF) approach. Based on these investigations, a new combined static contact angle-dynamic contact angle (SCA-DCA) model was proposed and applied to compute the hydrocarbon drop spreading process. The predicted time-dependent drop shapes agree well, within 5% of both previously published results and the experimental data presented here, while previous models showed at least a 10% deviation from the experiments. This proposed model also avoids the requirement for experimental measurement with specific fluids and only requires the general fluid properties. In addition to the numerical investigations, a droplet combustion experiment was also carried out. In this experiment, the ignition and combustion of the suspended fuel droplet were recorded using a high speed camera. Image processing techniques were then utilized to measure fuel combustion characteristics such as burning rate and ignition delay.
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