A Scaling Study of a Corridor Subject to a Room Fire

Abstract

A study was made of the thermal and flow environment within a corridor subject to a room fire of intensities of 300 to 1500 kW approximately. A corresponding model study was done under 1/7th geometric scale. Dimensionless groups were derived from the conservation equations governing the gas and solid phases. A subset of dimensionless groups was identified as significant to establish criteria to maintain partial dynamic scaling between the model and prototype experiments. Good results were achieved between the model and prototype for the convective process, i.e., gas temperature, velocity and convective heat transfer. Radiant heat transfer did not scale, but an analysis of the data explains the lack of agreement in terms of dimensionless groups that were not preserved in scaling. A secondary result yielded corridor convective heat transfer coefficients which could be correlated by a general relationship.