Anay Luketa

Dual-Pump CARS Measurements of Temperature and Oxygen in a Turbulent Methanol-Fueled Pool Fire

We present broadband, dual-pump coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) measurements of N2 and O2 in 2 m diameter methanol pool fires. The design of the fiber-optically coupled CARS instrument for fire measurements is described. Single-shot temperatures and O2/N2 ratios were obtained simultaneously from a single measurement point at the center of the fire plume, and the measured temperature–oxygen statistics are compared to results of a time-domain-filtered Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes simulation. The measured and simulated mean fire temperatures agree to within 2–4%, with larger turbulent fluctuations observed in the measured temperatures. The behavior of the mean temperature conditioned on the O2/N2 ratio is similar for both simulation and experiment, but with simulated temperatures that are up to 10% lower than measured values for O2/N2 below 0.18. The uncertainty in the CARS measurements is described. A single-shot detection limit of O2/N2 = 0.06 was determined from the observed signal to noise ratio in the measured O2 Q-branch spectra. Comparison of the CARS and thermocouple-measured temperatures in tube-furnace-heated air allowed characterization of the CARS instrument accuracy and precision and it was determined that between 500–1400 K the instrument accuracy is ∼1% and the measurements are reproducible to within 5–7%.

Literature Survey of Crude Oil Properties Relevant to Handling and Fire Safety in Transport.

Several fiery rail accidents in 2013-2015 in the U.S. and Canada carrying crude oil produced from the Bakken region of North Dakota have raised questions at many levels on the safety of transporting this, and other types of crude oil, by rail. Sandia National Laboratories was commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy to investigate the material properties of crude oils, and in particular the so-called “tight oils” like Bakken that comprise the majority of crude oil rail shipments in the U.S. at the current time. The current report is a literature survey of public sources of information on crude oil properties that have some bearing on the likelihood or severity of combustion events that may occur around spills associated with rail transport. The report also contains background information including a review of the notional “tight oil” field operating environment, as well a basic description of crude oils and potential combustion events in rail transport.

Application of a Pragmatic Interval-Based "Real Space" Approach to Fire-Model Validation Involving Aleatory and Epistemic Uncertainty.

This paper applies a pragmatic interval-based approach to validation of a fire dynamics model involving computational fluid dynamics, combustion, participating-media radiation, and heat transfer. Significant aleatory and epistemic sources of uncertainty exist in the experiments and simulations. The validation comparison of experimental and simulation results, and corresponding criteria and procedures for model affirmation or refutation, take place in “real space” as opposed to “difference space” where subtractive differences between experiments and simulations are assessed. The versatile model validation framework handles difficulties associated with representing and aggregating aleatory and epistemic uncertainties from multiple correlated and uncorrelated source types, including: experimental variability from multiple repeat experiments uncertainty of experimental inputs experimental output measurement uncertainties uncertainties that arise in data processing and inference from raw simulation and experiment outputs parameter and model-form uncertainties intrinsic to the model numerical solution uncertainty from model discretization effects.

Diagnostic development for determining the joint temperature/soot statistics in hydrocarbon-fueled pool fires : LDRD final report.

A joint temperature/soot laser-based optical diagnostic was developed for the determination of the joint temperature/soot probability density function (PDF) for hydrocarbon-fueled meter-scale turbulent pool fires. This Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) effort was in support of the Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) program which seeks to produce computational models for the simulation of fire environments for risk assessment and analysis. The development of this laser-based optical diagnostic is motivated by the need for highly-resolved spatio-temporal information for which traditional diagnostic probes, such as thermocouples, are ill-suited. The in-flame gas temperature is determined from the shape of the nitrogen Coherent Anti-Stokes Raman Scattering (CARS) signature and the soot volume fraction is extracted from the intensity of the Laser-Induced Incandescence (LII) image of the CARS probed region. The current state of the diagnostic will be discussed including the uncertainty and physical limits of the measurements as well as the future applications of this probe.