EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON BURNING BEHAVIOR OF CRUDE KARANJA OIL POOL FIRE

This paper studies experimentally the burning behavior of crude karanja oil pool fires in free burning. Experiments were conducted in pool size from 0.2 to 0.5 m. Various parameters such as mass loss rate, flame height, centerline temperature, and heat flux are measured and analyzed. Experimental data are fitted and correlations are presented for mass loss rate and flame centerline temperature. From the present correlation, (m)over dot(infinity)'' and k beta were found to be 0.0354 and 1.87 which were in well agreement with the results available in literature for heavy oil pool fire. Also, experimental mass loss rates were from 40% to 170% lesser than the compartment jatropha crude oil pool fires. Experimental flame height agrees well with the existing correlations for a small diameter pool fire of 0.2 and 0.3 m but at a larger pool size deviations are reported. Radiative fractions calculated from the solid flame method are in the range from 0.19 to 0.30 which matches well with the general assumption of pool fire that heat transfer from flame is 30% by radiation and 70% by convection. The present results are helpful in analysis of thermal hazard associated with pool fire of crude oils.