Capturing the Swirling Vortex and the Impact of Ventilation Conditions on Small-Scale Fire Whirls

The fundamental flow structure and temperature distribution of small-scale fire whirls, including tangential and axial velocities, temperature variation, and air entrainment in the lower boundary layer, were successfully captured using a generic fire field model with large eddy simulation (LES) turbulence closure. Numerical predictions were validated thoroughly against two small-scale experimental measurements, where detailed temperature and velocity distributions were recorded. Good agreement between numerical and experimental results was achieved. Normalization was also performed to compare the numerical predictions with the empirical correlations by Lei et al. (2015) developed from medium-scale fire whirl measurements. The transient development stages of small-scale fire whirls and the impact of air entrainment on the stability of the fire whirls were also investigated based on the validated numerical results. The numerical validations showed the potential of the current LES fire field model in capturing the dynamic behaviour of the fire whirl plume and performing a quantitative analysis on its onset criteria and combustion dynamics in future.