Protective Lines for Suppressing the Combustion Front of Forest Fuels: Experimental Research

The article presents the results of experimental research, determining the conditions for suppressing the combustion front of forest fuels (FF) with the use of a protective water line. Integral parameters, velocities and other characteristics of the main interrelated heat and mass transfer processes, phase transformations and chemical reactions are studied. The conditions for suppressing the combustion front of typical forest fuels (needles; leaves; a mixture of needles, leaves and branches) are established. The experimental conditions are designed to be the utmost close to those of ground forest fires and parameters of fire lines: in terms of temperature, wind velocity, the forest fuel layer thickness, the size of water droplets, etc. The rational dimensions (width, length, depth) of the protective water lines, the density of water irrigation of the material surface, the volume of liquid, the time of spraying are determined. It is shown that effective conditions for forest burning localization can be achieved at almost complete thermal decomposition of a small layer of FF near the barrier line. It is established that necessary and sufficient conditions of FF combustion localization can be reliably predicted using the obtained dependences of specific water flow rate on FF volume. (C) 2019 Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Institution of Chemical Engineers.