The Development And Mitigation Of Backdrafts: A Full-scale Experimental Study

Abstract

An experimental study of the development and mitigation of backdrafts shows that the key parameter for backdraft development is the fuel mass fraction. The results reveal that the critical fuel mass fraction, Yf, required for the development of diesel fuel backdrafts is 0.16 for fully vitiated conditions. Analysis of the data in conjunction with results in the literature has also demonstrated that standard flammability diagrams can be used to predict bounding limits and trends on Yf with respect to other key variables, such as oxygen concentration.