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Characterization of heat transfer to calorimeters engulfed in pool fires is extremely important. To estimate the heat flux to the calorimeters, experiments are performed with horizontal stainless steel 304L pipes engulfed in diesel pool fires. The concept of adiabatic surface temperature is applied to predict the incident heat flux to horizontally oriented calorimeters engulfed in diesel pool fires. Plate thermometers are used to measure the adiabatic surface temperature for diesel pool fires. The estimated subsurface temperatures inside the steel pipes using the adiabatic surface temperature concept and the measured temperatures are in good agreement. Adiabatic surface temperature is also computed from fire simulations. The incident heat fluxes to the steel pipes engulfed in fire predicted from the simulations are found to be in good agreement with the experiments. The fire numerical code is validated against the 1 m pool fire experimental results of centerline temperature distribution and irradiances away from fire. A correlation is provided for the estimation of adiabatic surface temperature for large diesel pool fires. These results would provide an effective way for thermal test simulations.

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Accidental fire is a major concern in terms of safety of infrastructures and human lives. With the technological advancement, several novel methods are developed for minimizing the damages caused by the fire. One of the methods is to paint the base metals/ material with fire retardant coatings which can increase the lead time so that economic destruction and loss of human lives can be avoided. In this work, the performance of the intumescent coating (passive type fire retardant coatings) is studied with the help of cone calorimeter and open pool diesel fire as sources of heat. The transient temperature distribution for bare Stainless Steel 310 plate suggests that the cone calorimeter experiments alone cannot suffice for mimicking real life conditions. Comparison of the behavior of the available paints in cone calorimeter and open pool fire confirms that the performance of intumescent coatings in cone calorimeter is very different from that in open pool fire. The safe initial thickness of the intumescent coating is a function of heat release rate of the source. The effective thermal conductivity of the intumescent coatings is evaluated using one dimensional conduction heat equation with constant boundary temperature condition.

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