CFD Modeling of Liquid Jet Fire

Although jet fires may pose a major hazard in the chemical processing industry, they are typically modeled with semi-empirical models that were developed based on experimental results of natural gas. In most semi-empirical models it is assumed that all liquid is instantly vaporized upon discharge and combusted fully in the jet. In reality, depending on discharge fuel momentum, elevation, temperature and liquid fuel properties, a significant percentage of liquid fuel may fall to the ground and burn as a pool rather than contribute to the jet fire. As a result, semi-empirical models may predict overly conservative results when used to model liquid spray jet fires.

In this study, a Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) code was used to model gasoline jet fires and compared with experiment results. Results show that the CFD code correctly predicted liquid jet flame shape, dimension, rainout condition, and thermal radiation level.