Computational and experimental study of laminar flames from forest fuels

Experiments and simulations have been conducted to study the burning of three different vegetative fuels involved in forest fires. An experimental apparatus was designed to generate, in laboratory conditions, laminar, axisymmetric, time- varying and non-premixed flames of these fuels. Characterization of temperature in such flame was managed. The experimental data were used for the testing of a very simple formulation for fuel oxidation. To proceed, the gases released from the pyrolysis of one of the above vegetative fuels were analysed by means of a tube furnace apparatus connected to a gas chromatograph. Using numerical methods the transient equations for the conservation of mass, momentum, energy and chemical species were solved for the flame as well as the radiative transfer equation. The calculated distribution of temperature is presented for this fuel. It does agree with the experimental data recorded as a function of time, at different heights in the flame.