Pool fire model comparison for radiation evaluation in case of fire in tank farms

The heat radiated by a large pool fire is the main heat transfer mechanism to the surroundings. In case of a pool fire occurring in a tank farm, the evaluation of the radiation to the system of tanks in the vicinity of a flame is the crucial point for designing and sizing of the cooling rig and estimating the local and overall amount of cooling water to prevent the fire from propagating inside the tank farm. The usual approach to the radiation calculation in such cases is the solid flame model. The irradiation to the surroundings is calculated by a set of empirical correlations for flame thermal and geometrical parameters and the radiation propagation from the flame to the targets is calculated by taking into account the (overall or local) view factor values and radiation attenuation in the atmosphere. In this paper four literature models for solid flame modelling are critically examined and compared on the basis of their ability to predict the radiation data, on given targets, taken from the literature. The models here considered were proposed by Mudan (or SFPE model), Rew et al. (HSE), Shokry and Beyler (NRC) and TNO. Presented results show that, among the uniform emission models, the Mudan method can give the most reliable predictions on radiated heat transfer as the pool fire diameter is varied in the 3~60 m range, while the non-uniform emission model by Rew et al. seems to be able to more precisely take into account the variation of the fuel properties and the radiation effects in the close and far field from the flame surface.