Flame Heights and Heat Release Rates of 1991 Kuwait Oil Field Fires.
Flame Heights and Heat Release Rates of 1991 Kuwait Oil
Field Fires.
(434 K)
Evans, D. D.; Madrzykowski, D.; Haynes, G. A.
NIST SP 995; Volume 2; March 2003.
International Association for Fire Safety Science. Fire
Safety Science. Proceedings. 4th International
Symposium. July 13-17, 1994, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada,
Intl. Assoc. for Fire Safety Science, Boston, MA,
Kashiwagi, T., Editor(s), 1279-1289 pp, 1994.
Keywords:
fire research; fire safety; fire science; oil well
fires; flame height; heat release rate; blowout fires;
crude oil; flame radiation; jet flames
Abstract:
A series of measurements were made in the Al Mawqa/Al
Ahmadi oil field region of Kuwait to explore the
feasibility of assessing the heat release rate of
individual well fires through flame height and thermal
radiation measurements. The heat release rate (in kW) of
crude oil well fires was correlated with the flame
height (zeta,in meters) using rate of heat release =
(zeta/0.21)5/2. The 12 Kuwait oil field fires measured
ranged in calculated heat release rate from 90 MW to 2
GW which correspond to flow rates of 0.003 m3/s (1500
bbls/day) to 0.059 m3/s (30000 bbls/day). Based on
these twelve burning well measurements, the estimated
total flow from the 651 damaged wells, both burning and
leaking in March 1991, was 14 m3/s (7,400,000 bbls/day)
which is only 20 percent greater than published National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) estimates
based on information from the Kuwait Oil Company.
Building and Fire Research Laboratory
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Gaithersburg, MD 20899