Experimental Evaluation on Performance of Open Kitchen Fire Suppression Systems

Abstract

Experiments with burning cooking oil in open kitchen fires are reported in this paper. Heat release rate, flame temperature, burning duration and heat fluxes of cooking oil fires were measured. Performances of water mist and gas-solid composite dry powders in suppressing cooking oil fires were evaluated by experiments. Reduction in gas temperature distributions, changes in heat fluxes and suppression time were then measured. Experimental data will provide necessary information for hazard assessment of open kitchen in the residential units of tall buildings.

Modelling the thermal radiation from kitchen hob fires

“…Comparison between measured 6 and calculated heat flux for open hob fires: (a) Test 2; (b) Test 3; (c) Test 11.…”

“…Corn and peanut cooking oils were burned in pans that varied in size, shape (round and rectangular) and material composition (cast iron and steel). As opposed to Chow and Ni, 6 in the experiments by Hamins et al, the gas or electric heating source remained energised throughout.…”

“…Several researchers have previously investigated residential kitchen fires along with potential fire safety measures that could be employed to mitigate the hazard. The work by Hamins et al along with Chow and Ni 6 are of direct relevance and Table 1 summarises the key characteristics of the specific experiments investigated in this article. Other work includes that of Liu et al, 9 who examined industrial cooking oil fires, although measurements of HRR and heat flux are not reported in their work.…”

“…Chow and Ni 6 conducted open hob fire experiments under an oxygen consumption calorimeter. A stainless-steel wok was filled to around 80% capacity with 500 mL of a blend of canola, soyabean and peanut cooking oils.…”

“…Similar to Chow and Ni, 6 in the open hob fire experiments the HRR of burning cooking oils was measured under a 3 by 3 m hood exhaust hood using oxygen consumption calorimetry. Assuming the hob was nominally 0.91 m tall (as for the enclosed kitchen experiments), and although the height of the exhaust hood above the floor is not specifically given in Hamins et al, 7 information provided to the authors confirms that the distance to the underside edge of the hood was 1.8 m and the extract duct was located at 3.6 m. Thus, there would have been around 0.9 m between the top of the hob and the underside edge of the hood.…”