Mechanism of Fires: Chemistry and Physical Aspects

This textbook on fire dynamics provides a comprehensive description of fuels involved in fires, definitions related to fire, thermodynamics for fire calculations, basics of transport processes and fundamental aspects of combustion related to fire, physical descriptions of premixed and non-premixed flames, detailed analysis of the characteristics of fires from solid and liquid fuels, including ignition, spread and burning rates and physical aspects of fire plumes, compartment fires and dust fires. The contents also highlight fundamental aspects related to the evaporation of liquid fuels and pyrolysis of solid fuels which are explained with simplified mathematical expressions. The book includes pedagogical features such as worked examples to illustrate mathematical calculations involved in fire analysis and end-of-chapter review questions. This book proves useful for students, researchers and industry professionals alike.

Dr. Ali S. Rangwala is a Professor of Fire Protection Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). He has a Ph.D. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from the University of California, San Diego. He received the NSF CAREER award on Controlling Mechanisms of Dust Layer Ignition and Flame Propagation in Dust Clouds. He has also served on panels for the National Science Foundation (NSF), Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), National Fire Protection Association, (NFPA), and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), related to areas of combustion, fire and explosion. He has 4 patents related to different topics in combustion. He has published over 60 peer-reviewed international journal articles and has presented in over 70 conferences. He teaches three graduate courses: Explosion Protection, Industrial Fire Protection, and Combustion at the Department of Fire Protection Engineering in WPI.

Dr. Vasudevan Raghavan is currently Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT), India. He obtained his Ph.D. from IIT Madras and has carried out his postdoctoral research in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA, in NASA aided microgravity droplet combustion simulations. His areas of research include computational fluid dynamics applied to reacting flows, laminar flames, fire modelling, evaporation and combustion of liquid fuel droplets, flame spread and liquid fuel pool combustion, gasification and combustion of coal and biomass. He has authored about 110 international peer-reviewed journal articles and 60 international conference articles. He teaches graduate courses such as Theory of Fire Propagation, Fundamentals of Combustion, Combustion Technology and Applied Thermodynamics at the Department of Mechanical Engineering in IITM.