Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10316.2/44556
Title: Cfd study of effect of water drop by aerial firefighting to protect forest fire growth
Authors: Satoh, Koyu
Viegas, Domingos
Liu, Naian
Xie, Xiaodong
Tu, Ran
Keywords: CFD Study;Forest Fire;Aerial Firefighting;Water Drop;Fire Spreading Speed;Wind speed
Issue Date: 2018
Publisher: Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra
Journal: http://hdl.handle.net/10316.2/44517
Abstract: Wildfires destroy the natural environment, cause property damages and cause victims, therefore great research effort is dedicated to improve protection against wildfires. As fire growth depends on many parameters to examine behavior relevant to fire protection methods systematically, we used CFD simulations to analyze the role of aerial fire-fighting. CFD simulations of the fire spread in relation to the water drop effect in aerial fire-fighting were done using the (15 x 15) fuel array in windy conditions. A single fuel cell is 8m x 8m x 2m, varying the space distance between the adjacent fuel cells. The water drop effect is examined as a function of the heat release rate, varying the wind speed. The results of our previous studies showed that it is difficult to extinguish the burning area in wildfires by directly dropping water over the flames and also it is less effective to drop water in the fringe areas of burning fires parallel to the wind direction. Therefore, the way selected in this study is to drop water in the downwind area slightly away from the fire front, making a water belt to reduce the radiative heat transfer. However, if the fuel distributes densely, even the water belt dropped in the area of 20m x 60m may not sufficient to stop the fire spread, since the fires may detour both sides of the water belt or the fires jump over the water belt. However, water dropped belts are very effective to delay the fire spreading speed. If the space distance between adjacent fuel cells is larger than 2m, the water belt can protect or highly delay the fire spread. One problem is the amount of water to realize such a water belt to stop the fire spread, since helicopters carry too few water and it is dangerous for helicopters to fly in the hot and smoky air. Large aircrafts carrying large amount of water are needed to make such a large water belt.
URI: https://hdl.handle.net/10316.2/44556
ISBN: 978-989-26-16-506 (PDF)
DOI: 10.14195/978-989-26-16-506_39
Rights: open access
Appears in Collections:Advances in forest fire research 2018

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