Engineering Commons^™

Merging Of Horizontally And Vertically Separated Small-Scale Buoyant Flames, Thomas H. Fletcher, Denver Haycock, Seth Tollefsen, David Lignell

Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study was to investigate the merging behavior of small-scale buoyant flames that might be representative of flames from a leaf in a shrub. Zirconia felt pads soaked in n-heptane were suspended on thin rods and spaced both horizontally and vertically. Time-dependent video images from flames from two-pad and three-pad configurations were analyzed to determine merging probability, combined flame characteristics (height, area, and width), and changes in burn time. Correlations of these combined flame characteristics were developed based on horizontal and vertical spacing between the pads. Merging probability correlated with an exponential function that was quadratic in …