Fireball during combustion of hydrocarbon fuel releases. I. Structure and lift dynamics

The formation, combustion, and thermal interaction of the fireballs which develop upon ignition of a cloud of hydrocarbon fuel near the Earth’s surface are simulated numerically. The axisymmetric nonstationary flow is described by a system of Favre averaged conservation equations invoking a $(k-\varepsilon)$-turbulence model, a model for turbulent combustion, and a global-kinetic scheme for formation and burnup of soot particles. The optical properties of the mixture of combustion products and soot are modeled by a weighted sum of gray gases. The radiation field is calculated using a combination of a volume emission approximation and a diffusion approximation. Calculations are done for fireballs formed during vertical releases of gaseous propane masses of 1 g to 10$^3$ kg with ignition near the release point. The internal structure of a fireball is analyzed in detail at various stages of its evolution. The lift dynamics of a fireball is illustrated for release velocities corresponding to Froude numbers (defined as the square of the ratio of the linear outflow velocity to the characteristic velocity owing to buoyancy forces) ranging from 5–250. The temperature, concentrations, and reaction rates in the fireball are determined as functions of time. It is shown that for these ranges of fuel mass and release velocity, the dimensionless parameters introduced here can be used for scaling the results and using the calculated dependences obtained here in a unified fashion.