A Method for Modeling the Mitigation of Hazardous Fire Thermal Radiation by Water Spray Curtains

A radiative transfer model describing the interactions between hazardous fire thermal radiation and water sprays is presented. Both the liquid (water droplets) and gaseous (mainly water vapor and carbon dioxide) phases of the spray are considered in the present work. Radiative properties of the polydisperse water droplets are derived from Mie theory. The gaseous phase behavior is handled by the correlated-k distribution method, where the k-distribution function is evaluated for Malkmus narrow-band statistical model. The radiative transfer equation, in its integral form, is solved by a discrete ordinates method. After a general description of the radiative model developed and the experimental task to validate it, some results are discussed on its accuracy and CPU time. A deeper analysis is also carried out to point out the influence of the main parameters involved in the problem.