Experimental Study of the Conditions for Quenching Forest Combustible Materials

To confirm the possibility of quenching forest combustible materials by small volumes of water, experimental studies have been made of the processes of interaction of droplets, films, and aerosol flows of water with small sources of combustion of typical forest combustible materials — birch leaves, pine needles, birch and asp twigs. Model combustion sources in the form of cylinders of diameter 20–60 mm and height 40–100 mm were constructed. With the use of high-speed video recording, the characteristic times of thermal decomposition of forest combustibles and the times of suppressing combustion of these materials under various conditions of their interaction with water (pulsed supply of aerosol, injection of water ″mist″ with droplets of radius up to 100 μm, sequential supply of large drops of radius about 1.5 mm) have been determined. Volumes of water sufficient for suppressing combustion depending on the method of supplying it onto the surface of the reacting forest combustible have been determined. Estimates have been made of the nonreacted portion of the material by comparing the initial mass of the sample of the forest combustible with its final mass (upon quenching the material).