Experimental Study on Spread and Burning Characteristics of Continuous Spill Fire Leaked from a Point Source under Different Slopes

Liquid fuel is widely used in industry and transportation. Liquid fuel leakage usually results in some spill fire accidents. In this paper, the effect of slope on the spread and burning behaviors of continuous spill fire from a point discharge source was studied by experiments. The flame spread rate, burning rate, heat convection at the bottom surface, flame feedback radiation, and flame height were analyzed. The results show that the spread area has an increasing trend with the slope, and the length of the spread area increases obviously, while the width of spread area shows an opposite trend. Moreover, the burning rate and the flame height of the steady stage decreases significantly with the slope increase, which can be attributed to the increase of heat convection between the fuel layer and bottom for the larger slopes. Subsequently, a burning rate model for the steady stage is built considering fuel layer heat loss and validated by the current experimental data. This work can provide guidance for the thermal hazard analysis of liquid fuel spill fires from a point source.