Citation

Gottuk DT, Peatross MJ, Farley JP, Williams FW. Fire Safety J. 1999; 33(4): 261-282.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1999, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a real-scale experimental test series to study the development and mitigation of backdrafts. Experiments consisted of creating backdrafts onboard a US Navy test ship, ex-USS SHADWELL. This study has shown that the key parameter for backdraft development is the fuel mass fraction. The results show that the critical fuel mass fraction, Yf, required for the development of diesel fuel backdraft is 0.16 for fully vitiated conditions. The effects of varying adjacent room boundaries and ventilation conditions are discussed. In general, the intensity of a backdraft is more dependent on the adjacent boundaries than on the ventilation conditions. The injection of water spray into the fire compartment was shown to be an effective mitigating tactic that was able to completely suppress backdrafts primarily by means of diluting the atmosphere and reducing the fuel mass fraction, rather than by a thermal mechanism of cooling.