Hot surface ignition of liquid fuels in a stagnation point flow

Fuel leakages from piping in vehicles and aircrafts can result in dangerous accidental fires. There is a growing demand for reliable modeling tools capable of predicting ignition and subsequent fires in real-world devices. However, the development and validation of these tools requires high quality experimental data in simpler academic configurations.

In this study, we will discuss a new experiment under development at Stanford University to investigate fire ignition and heat load in a canonical academic setting representative of ventilated compartments commonly found in vehicles.

The experimental procedure allows to independently assess the effects of residence time, fuel type, droplet size distribution, mixture fraction, surface temperature, and surface material on ignition and heat loading. Large optical access enables optical measurements using high speed chemiluminescence and interferometric droplet sizing and imaging.

We present preliminary results on the ignition behavior of n-heptane in this configuration.

This experimental framework will provide crucial data to evaluate and improve existing numerical simulation tools for thermal droplet ignition.