Combustion and Flame 205 (2019) 147–153

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Combustion and Flame

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/combustflame

Conditions for formation of the blue whirl

Yu Hu a,c, Sriram Bharath Hariharan b, Haiying Qi a, Michael J. Gollner b,∗, Elaine S. Oran c
a
Key laboratory for Thermal Science and Power Engineering of Ministry of Education, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, PR China
b
Department of Fire Protection Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, 4356 Stadium Drive, College Park, MD 20742, USA
c
Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This paper presents a laboratory study of the relation between blue whirls and fire whirls in terms of
Received 2 September 2018 circulation (swirl) and energy-release rate. The blue whirl is a small, completely blue, soot-free flame
Revised 11 October 2018
that was originally seen when it evolved from more traditional fire whirls burning liquid hydrocarbons
Accepted 29 March 2019
on water. The experimental apparatus consists of two offset quartz half-cylinders suspended over a water
surface, with fuel injected onto the water surface from below. The flow circulation is calculated using the
Keywords: diameter of the enclosure and hot-wire velocity measurements made at the inlet gap between the half-
Fire whirl cylinders. The heat-release rate was varied by adjusting the volumetric supply rate of liquid n-heptane,
Blue whirl and is calculated assuming complete combustion. Results show that stable blue whirls form in a narrow
Scaling
range of circulation and energy-release rate close to a previously cited extinction limit. A scaling law
derived from the data, based on the length scale of the enclosure, shows that the transition to a blue
whirl depends on the gap size between the half-cylinders of the enclosure.
© 2019 The Combustion Institute. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
While there are many methods used to control particulate
emissions from combustion, the blue whirl, a regime of the fire
whirl, presents a unique opportunity as it burns liquid hydro-
carbons directly with little visible soot [1–3]. Unlike previously
studied swirl-combustion systems, the blue whirl forms with-
out any mechanical forcing and burns a variety of liquid hydro-
carbons. Measurements have reported peak flame temperatures
around 20 0 0 K [3–5], which exceeds the values expected for a non-
premixed n-heptane flame [6]. Such high temperatures partially
explain the blue color, which arises from efficient mixing of evap-
orated fuel and air [7]. It has also been postulated that fast mixing
might be responsible for soot reduction, and that the unique flame
shape may be attributed to interactions of combustion associated
with a vortex-breakdown bubble mode [1,2].
The combination of ambient circulation,  , and heat-release
rate, Q˙ , plays an important role in the formation of a variety of fire
whirls studied by Lei et al. [8], and it is likely that that these pa-
rameters are important for the blue whirl as well. Previous work
on fire whirls has attempted to control ambient circulation and
heat-release independently through the use of spinning meshes
∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: mgollner@umd.edu (M.J. Gollner).
[8,9] and gas burners [10–12]. The blue whirl, however, has been
studied in a self-entraining flow apparatus, in which the circula-
tion induced within the enclosure is coupled to the buoyancy (and
thus, heat-release rate) from combustion [1,4]. Several prior stud-
ies [13–18] used setups similar to the one used here. A recent
review by Tohidi et al. [19] describes in detail the various meth-
ods of formation, the structure, and current understanding of fire
whirls.
This study uses a fixed-frame self-entraining flow apparatus
consisting of two half cylinders suspended over a water surface.
By adjusting the fuel supply rate and the gap size between the
two cylinders, the heat-release rate and circulation are controlled
over a range of values, resulting in various fire whirl regimes that
form as a result of a natural balance between heat-release rate and
buoyancy within the enclosure. The corresponding values of Q˙ , de-
termined by fuel-supply rate, and  , determined by the measured
inlet velocity, are then used in a scaling analysis.
The first objective of this paper is to find the regime of Q˙ and
 in which the blue whirl exists, which may then be used to pre-
dict the formation of the blue whirl in a similar, but larger sized
apparatus that may be of practical utility. The second objective is
to find a scaling law that can be used to extend the regime beyond
the measurements here. These will also help guide theory and con-
ditions for simulations.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.combustflame.2019.03.043
0010-2180/© 2019 The Combustion Institute. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
148 Y. Hu, S.B. Hariharan and H. Qi et al. / Combustion and Flame 205 (2019) 147–153

tion of the fuel over the water surface, swirl was naturally induced
Nomenclature in the enclosure by tangential air entrainment through the gaps.
Videos of the experiment were captured using a SONY RX10II at
 ambient circulation, m2 /s f/5.6 with a frame rate of 60 fps at multiple ISO values. A DANTEC
Q˙ heat-release rate, kW 55P16 hot-wire probe with a 54T42 Mini CTA anemometer was po-
V˙ fuel-supply rate, ml/min sitioned at the center of one inlet gap to record tangential veloc-
S gap size between the two cylinders, mm ities. The vertical position of the probes (height above the water
Dc characteristic length of enclosure between half surface) was controlled using a robotic traverse mechanism.
cylinders, mm To calibrate the hot-wire, a standard calibration air jet with
Uθ tangential velocity at the inlet due to air entrain- a uniform velocity profile was produced by a gradually expand-
ment, m/s ing nozzle fitted with round meshes (60 mm dia.) of around
h c lower heating value, kJ/kg 1.48 grids/mm2 . An ALICAT 98,712 flow meter was used to control
Z vertical (axial) position, mm the exit velocity between 0.1 and 1.0 m/s. An OMEGA HH11B ther-
T0 ambient air temperature, K mometer was used during all experiments to record the ambient
ρ0 ambient air density, kg/m3 temperature, providing the reference data for temperature correc-
T change in temperature at the flame front, K tions, although the ambient temperature during these experiments
ρ change in density at the flame front, kg/m3 was found to vary only ± 0.3 °C.
Cp,0 specific heat of air at ambient temperature, kJ/(kg- Air entrainment into the enclosure is controlled by the buoy-
K) ancy generated by the flames within the enclosure. For a given gap
g gravitational acceleration, m2 /s size and fuel flow rate resulting in a stable fire whirl (i.e., a rela-
ΓD∗ dimensionless ambient circulation, [-] tively constant flame height), the inlet velocity adjusted itself to a
Q˙ D∗ dimensionless heat-release rate, [-] particular value due to the self-entraining flow configuration. Com-
S∗ normalized gap size, [-] binations which resulted in continuously varying flame heights are
V˙ air volumetric air entrainment rate, m3 /s termed “transition regimes,” and are discussed later. The velocity
L fixed diameter of quartz half cylinder, mm at the inlet due to air entrainment, Uθ , was recorded for each com-
LC height of each quartz half cylinder, mm bination of gap size (S) and fuel supply rate (V˙ ), along with a video
bw flame width, mm of the fire whirl formation, which was used to determine the flame
Ūz average axial velocity over the cross-section of the regime.

flame, m/s Results are presented in terms of inlet circulation, Γ = Uθ • dl,
C
the line integral of Uθ along the periphery of the enclosure. Here,
2. Experimental approach  is approximated as Γ = π Uθ DC , where DC is the characteristic
length of the setup, calculated as the sum of the fixed diameter
Experiments were conducted in the same setup as used by Xiao of the half cylinder, L, and the gap size, S (see Fig. 1). The heat-
et al. [1] and Hariharan et al. [4], depicted in Fig. 1. A 40 cm di- release rate of the fire is estimated assuming complete combustion
ameter steel pan was filled water, and liquid n-heptane was sup- of the supplied fuel Q˙ = V˙ hc ρ f , where hc is the lower heating
plied continuously to the water surface through a small copper value (LHV) and ρ f , is the density of liquid n-heptane. Therefore,
tube using a syringe pump. Flow rates in this study varied between by changing S and V˙ , various combination of  and Q˙ are achieved.
0.5 and 10.0 ml/min. Two quartz half-cylinders with a diameter of Using the videos, the different regimes identified are classified in
310 mm and a height of 610 mm were suspended directly over the a way similar to the work of Lei et al. [8]. There are three types
water surface. The two quartz half-cylinders were offset at differ- of fire whirls formed: the blue whirl (BW), the transitional blue
ent gap sizes (15, 25, 35, 45 and 55 mm in this study). Upon igni- whirl (TBW), and the stable fire whirl (FW). These are mapped as
regions on graphs of both S vs. V˙ and  vs. Q˙ . The scaling approach
is discussed in Section 4.
All experiments were performed a minimum of three times for
a given set of experimental conditions. In general, data from exper-
iments that showed the stable presence of a given flame regime for
more than three minutes were used for analysis.

3. Results

3.1. Flame regimes

Figure 2 shows the typical flame regimes observed as V˙ is var-

Fig. 1. Schematic of experimental setup.
ied from 0.5 to 10 ml/min for a fixed S of 25 mm. The blue whirl
(Fig. 2– A and B) forms at small values of V˙ . The size of the blue
whirl grows slightly as V˙ is increased, but is much smaller than
flames in the traditional fire whirl regimes. For all values of S stud-
ied, a blue whirl did not form for V˙ larger than 1.3 ml/min. Beyond
this threshold (up to 2–3 ml/min, depending on S), repeated transi-
tions between a fire whirl and blue whirl occurred. This is depicted
in Fig. 2–C, D and E, which show the flame transition back and
forth between the blue whirl and a slender, tall yellow flame. In
the transition from the tall slender flame to the blue whirl, streaks
of remnant soot within the conical region of the blue whirl re-
semble recirculating patterns that are characteristic of bubble-type
 Y. Hu, S.B. Hariharan and H. Qi et al. / Combustion and Flame 205 (2019) 147–153
Fig. 2. Instantaneous flame images under different fuel supply rates for S = 25 mm. From (A) to (I), V = 0.5, 1.1, 1.5, 2.0, 3.0, 4.5, 6.0, 8.0 and 10.0 ml/min. (For interpretation
of the references to color in this figure, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
Fig. 3. Enlarged view of the blue whirl (A and B) and the transitional blue whirl
(C), corresponding to Fig. 2–A, B and C, obtained from a different experiment. (For
interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred
to the web version of this article.)
vortex breakdown [20]. As V˙ approaches 1.1 ml/min. the frequency
of these transitions increases, until finally a blue whirl is stably
formed.
Figure 2–C, D and E show that, during these transitions,
the average flame diameter grows slightly as its height rapidly
fluctuates. As the fuel supply rate is further increased, flames
in this transitional regime evolve into stable fire whirls
(Fig. 2–F, G and H), which have larger diameters than the blue
whirl and transitional blue whirl. As V˙ increases, there are fire
whirls with flame heights as tall as 60 cm, which is greater than
twice the height of transitional fire whirls. The dimensions of a
stable fire whirl grow with V˙ , but are quite stable for a given V˙ .
When V˙ increases enough (6–10 ml/min, depending on S), a sta-
ble fire whirl transitions to a large fire whirl (LFW, Fig. 2–I). This
transition begins as a stable fire whirl that steadily grows in di-
mension, and when the fuel accumulation over the water surface
reaches a limit, “bursts” into a large fire whirl. The LFW fills most
of the enclosure and exists only for few seconds, rapidly consumes
most of the fuel over the water surface and then transitions back
to a smaller fire whirl or sometimes even a blue whirl. After that,
a new cycle of lower consumption rate and high fuel-supply rate
starts again, resulting in fuel accumulation over the water surface,
which causes the size of the fire whirl to increase steadily. A sta-
ble LFW was not observed, which may be attributed to the relative
size of the fire whirl to the size of the enclosure. For safety con-
cerns, V˙ was not increased beyond 10 ml/min.
Figure 3 shows images of the blue whirl and transitional blue
whirl, similar to images A, B and C in Fig. 2. Compared to a fire
whirl, a blue whirl is too small to show on the same figure. The
blue whirl is usually 2–2.5 cm in diameter and 6–8 cm in height,
and the height and width of the blue whirl increase only slightly
with increasing V˙ . The images in Fig. 2 show the variation in
flame geometry from the near-extinction limit (V˙ = 0.5 ml/min for
S = 25 mm) to the transition limit (V˙ =1.5 ml/min for S = 25 mm).
Upon reaching a transitional blue-whirl regime, the flame height
increases significantly, while the width varies only slightly. The
bright yellow soot particles present in the transitional blue whirl
149
reveal the presence of an inner recirculation region, visible in
Fig. 3–C.
3.2. Effect of gap size and fuel supply rate
Figure 4 –A shows the different fire whirl regimes on a graph of
S vs. V˙ . The different regimes were identified using videos of each
experiment. A stable blue whirl forms in a narrow region close to
the extinction limit, where ‘limit’ refers to the minimum value of
a parameter for a specific flame regime. This definition of limits is
applied to all results in this study, and different dimensional and
non-dimensional parameters are used to define limits in the fol-
lowing sections. For example, the extinction limit in Fig. 4 repre-
sents the lowest volumetric fuel supply rate (V˙ ) that sustains the
blue whirl. Once V˙ drops below this value, the flame extinguishes.
The LFW limit in Fig. 4 indicates the minimum value of V˙ beyond
which the flame transitions from a stable FW to a LFW. The ‘tran-
sition limit’ in the graph of  –Q˙ represents the lowest value of Q˙
for which the flame is in a transitional regime (see Section 3.4).
The blue whirl was susceptible to small external acoustic per-
turbations, such as blowing into the gap inlet, ripples on the water
surface due to vibration of the base table, etc. When these pertur-
bations were introduced, a steady blue whirl either momentarily
transitioned to a TBW, or extinguished directly. In order to reduce
the effect of such perturbations on the blue whirl, strips of alu-
minum (50 mm wide, 0.1 mm thick) were attached parallel to the
inlet edges of the cylinders to form a channel for the inlet flow
(see Fig. 1). Figure 4–B shows the effect of adding the inlet chan-
nel. The range over which the blue whirl is formed is extended in
the presence of the inlet channel, but it has no discernible effect
on other fire whirl regimes.
3.3. Vertical variation of tangential velocity
To calculate the circulation resulting from natural entrainment,
the tangential velocity at the inlet of the gap was measured. For
fire whirls, it has been reported that ambient circulation outside
the vortex core (defined by the fire whirl flame sheet) is indepen-
dent of height above the entrainment region at the base of the fire
whirl [12,21]. The applicability of this observation to the blue whirl
at the entrance region at the tangential gaps needed to be veri-
fied, so that a single inlet velocity measurement could be used to
calculate the circulation. The tangential velocity as a function of
height was therefore measured for a number of blue whirls and
fire whirls.
The vertical distribution of tangential velocity for the blue
whirl is shown in Fig. 5–A. Measurements were analyzed and only
used when a stable blue whirl was formed for an extended period
beyond 3 min, as verified with synchronized video recordings.
The maximum visible height of the blue whirl is approximately
100 mm from the water surface. The tangential velocity varies
slightly below 100 mm, but is nearly constant above 100 mm.
150 Y. Hu, S.B. Hariharan and H. Qi et al. / Combustion and Flame 205 (2019) 147–153

Fig. 4. Limits of different fire whirl regimes on graphs of S vs. V – without (A) and with (B) inlet channels. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure, the
reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

Fig. 5. (A) Variation of tangential (azimuthal) velocity with height, measured at the inlet gap, for a blue whirl with S = 25 mm and V=1.1 ml/min. Peak velocity is seen at
a height of 45 mm. (B) Inlet velocity measurements at 10, 50, 150 and 250 mm above the water surface for fire whirls formed with S = 45 mm and different V, resulting in
different regimes. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

The peak at around 45 mm above the water surface, may roughly
correspond to the position of the bright blue ring of the blue
whirl. Measurements at Z = 0 were not performed, and a no-slip
condition is assumed to obtain the curve fit. This no-slip condition,
while appropriate in the entrance region, may not be appropriate
in the vicinity of the flame, as a slight swirling motion on the
water surface was observed.
Since only the blue whirl showed significant variations in Uθ
with height, and these variations were negligible beyond 100 mm,
four specific heights (10, 50, 150, 250 mm) were chosen for sub-
sequent velocity measurements for a wide variety of fire whirl
regimes. Figure 5–B shows the tangential velocity at the four spe-
cific heights for different flame regimes. As V˙ increases, the tan-
gential velocity increases monotonically, but is relatively constant
with the height for a given V˙ . Previous PIV measurements by
Hartl and Smits [12] also found that circulation does not vary with
height for a fire whirl. Thus, the inlet velocity at 150 mm above the
water surface is used to calculate the circulation for a given set of
experimental conditions in the following sections. This represents
an average value above the boundary layer formed at the bottom
surface. Error bars for the inlet velocity shown in Fig. 5 are quite
small, and thus the errors in the derived quantities,  and  ∗ used
in the following sections do not show error bars and are calculated
using the mean value.
3.4. Effect of circulation and heat-release rate
The different flame regimes observed are indicated on a graph
of  vs. Q˙ in Fig. 6. For each case,  and Q˙ were calculated accord-
ing the methods described in Section 2. The graph shows that the
blue whirl forms in a narrow region of  and Q˙ near the extinction
limit.
The effect of the inlet channel on  and Q˙ is shown in
Fig. 6–B. While this channel has little effect on the value of circu-
lation, some transitional blue whirl states are converted into stable
blue whirl states. The fire whirls observed in this investigation are
bound by two limits, fitted as a power-law relationship between
 and Q˙ . Best fits of the upper and lower limits for each case are
 Y. Hu, S.B. Hariharan and H. Qi et al. / Combustion and Flame 205 (2019) 147–153 151

Fig. 6. Limits of different flame regimes on graphs of  vs. Q, without (A) and with (B) inlet channels. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure, the reader
is referred to the web version of this article.)

given by the lines shown. The upper branch of this limit is com- a set of non-dimensional quantities is formed to describe the
prised of data for conditions with the lowest gap size, S = 15 mm. relationship between dimensionless ambient circulation, ΓD∗ =

This bifurcation effect will be discussed later in Section 3.2. Γ /Dc gDc , and four groups relevant to fire whirl formation,
 
T ρ gDc
4. Dimensional analysis and scaling Γ ∗
= f Q˙ D∗ , S∗ , , , (5)
D
T0 ρ0 Cp,0 T
The scaling approach presented here is based on the enclosure The subscript D above represents normalization by  the enclo-
dimensions and provides the range of conditions required for the sure dimension. The quantity Q˙ D∗ = Q˙ /(C p,0 T ρ0 Dc 2 gDc ) is the
formation of various flame regimes. This scaling was chosen as it dimensionless heat-release rate, where T is the air temperature-
could help predict the conditions required for blue whirl formation difference between ambient and the flame. The quantity S∗ = S/Dc ,
for a given apparatus size. By following previous scaling analyses is the dimensionless gap size, a geometric factor of the enclosure
performed on the fire whirl [12,19], a set of governing parameters apparatus. Following Kuwana et al. [22], T/T0 and ρ /ρ 0 are as-
for a fixed-frame fire whirl apparatus was selected, with a focus on sumed to be nearly constant in ordinary fires, while (g bw DC /Cp,0
the ambient circulation. T) indicates a ratio of potential energy to thermal energy, which
  is small enough to be neglected here. Hence Eq. (5) reduces to
Γ = f  Q˙ , S, Dc , T0 , ρ0 , ΔT , Δρ , Cp,0 , g (1)  
ΓD∗ =
Q˙ ∗ , S∗ (6)
The parameters  , Q˙ , S and DC were defined in Section 2. The  
quantities T0 and ρ 0 are the ambient air temperature and density, where ΓD∗ = Γ /Dc gDc , Q˙ D∗ = Q˙ /(C p,0 T ρ0 Dc gDc ) and S∗ =
2

T and ρ are the changes in temperature and density at the S/Dc .

flame front, Cp,0 is the specific heat of air at ambient temperature, Following this procedure, the different flame regions are
and g is the gravitational acceleration. marked on the dimensionless map of ΓD∗ –Q˙ D∗ (Fig. 7). As seen in
Eq. (1) assumes: the ambient circulation is independent of the dimensional data (Fig. 6), the blue whirl occupies a relatively
height, both for fire whirls and blue whirls (as in [12], and also narrow region close to the extinction limit. A gradual increase in
verified in this study); viscosity can be neglected compared to the both circulation and heat-release rate is observed as the flame
inertial and buoyant forces; heat conduction and mass diffusion transitions from the BW to the TBW and FW, while there is some
terms are negligibly small; and combustion is infinitely fast and overlap between the TBW and FW regimes. A clear distinction be-
steady state. By choosing DC , g, T0 and ρ 0 , as the basic physical tween the three flame regimes, however, depends more on heat-
quantities and applying Buckingham– theorem to Eq. (1), dimen- release rate rather than circulation. In Fig. 7, some overlap is seen
sional analysis yields the relationship between the FW and TBW regimes, although this is not seen in
Fig. 6. This is because  D ∗ and QD ∗ are proportional to DC (–1.5) and
6 = f1 ( 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ) (2) DC (–2.5 ) respectively. Since DC in the scaling analysis is not constant
Where, for all gap sizes, with increasing S, QD ∗ falls with an increasing rate,
resulting in the overlap region. The upper and lower bounds of all
Q˙ S T of the resulting fire whirl regimes are given by the following ex-
1 =  , 2 = , 3 = ,
ρ0 g gDc 7 Dc T0 pressions.
ρ C p,0 T0 Γ ΓD∗ = 3.76 Q˙ ∗f 0.17 (7)
4 = , 5 = , 6 =  (3)
ρ0 gDc gDc 3
ΓD∗ = 3.20 Q˙ ∗f 0.19 (8)
Re-arranging these terms as
  According to Eq. (6), ΓD∗ depends on Q˙ ∗f and S∗ . It is thus reason-
1 1 1
6 = f2 , , , , (4) able to expect the relationship between Γ ∗ and Q˙ ∗ to vary contin-
3 × 5 2 3 4 3 × 5 D f
152 Y. Hu, S.B. Hariharan and H. Qi et al. / Combustion and Flame 205 (2019) 147–153

Fig. 7. Dimensionless map of D ∗ −QD ∗. The black dashed and solid lines corre-
spond to Eqs. (9) and 10, respectively. The former only consists of data for S∗ =
0.073, 0.099, 0.124, 0.147. Note overlap region between TBW and FW regimes.
(For interpretation of the references to color in this figure, the reader is referred to
the web version of this article.)
Fig. 8. Variation of  D ∗ with QD ∗ /S∗ showing the limits obtained from Eq. (10).
The solid and dashed magenta lines show the transition limits for S∗ =0.045 and
S∗ >0.045 respectively. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure
legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

4.1. Blue-whirl stability

uously with S∗ . However, we find (Fig. 7) that the upper bound Eq.
(7) consists of only the S∗ = 0.045 data, while the lower bound (Eq.
In this experimental setup, only regimes that result from a nat-
(8)) contains data of all the larger gap sizes (S∗ = 0.073, 0.099, 0.124
ural balance between  and Q˙ are stably formed. This is differ-
and 0.147). This suggests that a bifurcation may exist for smaller S∗
ent from experiments where  and Q˙ are controlled independently
values, leading to a sharp increase in ΓD∗ . Consequently, for a given
[8]. Only three regimes, BW, TBW and FW are stably formed. Other
Q∗ in Fig. 7 with S∗ =0.045, circulation is significantly higher than
regimes, including the LFW, were briefly observed transients.
for all other values of S∗ , which have nearly similar ΓD∗ values. Be-
The presence of the channeled inlet section improved the sta-
low S∗ =0.045, stable fire whirl formation was not possible in our
bility of the blue whirls and reduced the frequency of their
experiments.
transitions and the fluctuations in height. Overlapping the two
To further investigate the relationship in Eq. (6), consider a
half-cylinders and creating an inlet channel reduced the radial
mass balance for a control volume around the flame. By defin-
component of inflow, minimizing the effect of any perturbations
ing the mass of fuel entering as m˙ f uel = Q˙ /HL , where HL is the
external to the enclosure.
LHV of the fuel, the mass of air required for stoichiometric com-
The presence of the inlet channel does not affect the average
bustion is m˙ air = Uθ ρ0 SLC and m˙ f uel ∝ m˙ air , where LC is the height
inlet velocities, determined by the volumetric air entrainment and
of the cylinders and Uθ = Γ /Dc . This assumption is valid since an
the gap size. The channeled inlet region created by the overlapping
increase in heat-release Fig. 5–B shows that an increase in heat-
section ensures that the radial inflow is small, and that most of the
release (fuel flow rate) results in an increase in inlet velocity. An
entrainment occurs in the azimuthal (tangential) direction.
increase in the amount of air utilized for combustion translates to
higher entrainment of air into the enclosure. The dependence of
ΓD∗ on Q˙ D∗ / S∗ is written as 4.2. Regime bifurcation at small inlet gap sizes
 
∗ n
Q˙ D We have seen that the bifurcation, observed in Figs. 6 and 7,
ΓD∗ = A (9)
S∗ depends on inlet gap size. The data for the smallest gap size,
S = 15 mm, follows a trend different than the larger gap sizes. To
where A and n are constants obtained from experimental data.
investigate the origin of this deviation, consider a mass balance
As shown in Fig. 8, and based on Eq. (9), the results show a
of a control volume enclosing the flame. For these different lim-
power-law relationship between ΓD∗ and Q˙ D∗ /S∗ , given by
its, the volumetric air entrainment rate, V˙ air can be expressed as
  0.17 V˙ air = 2SUθ Lc and also as V˙ air = 0.25π b2wŪz , where Ūz is the average
2.32 Q˙ D∗ /S∗ ; S∗ = 0.045
Γ =
∗
D  ∗ ∗ 0.17 ∗ (10) axial velocity over the cross-section of the flame. It can be derived
1.89 Q˙ D /S ; S > 0.045 that 2SUθ Lc = 0.25π b2wŪz , i.e.,
Similar to the result shown in Fig. 7, Fig. 8 also shows branching π b2w Ūz
or bifurcation at low S∗ . In Eq. (10), the two branches differ only Uθ = (11)
8Lc S
in the coefficient and not the exponent, but along these branches,
the transition limit from the BW to the TBW show significant dif- The right-hand side of Eq. (11) depends on the term Ūz /S. For
ferences. The transition limit is around Q˙ D∗ /S∗ = 0.025 for S∗ be- a fixed Q˙ , Ūz is constant, i.e., Q˙ ∝ V˙ air = 0.25π b2wŪz , and bw was
tween 0.073 and 0.147, but increases by about a factor of three to found to be nearly constant in this study. Therefore, as S decreases,
∼0.08 when S∗ drops to 0.045. Similar trends also appear for the the value of Uθ increases according to Eq. (11). Consequently,
extinction limit and the TBW to FW transition limit. Thus, for a the ambient circulation Γ = π Uθ Dc increases as S decreases for a
given enclosure diameter and fuel LHV, the scaling in Eq. (10) can fixed Q˙ . This can be used to help understand why the data for the
potentially be used to determine the limits of each flame regime. smallest gap size (S = 15 mm or S∗ = 0.045) are on the upper limit
 Y. Hu, S.B. Hariharan and H. Qi et al. / Combustion and Flame 205 (2019) 147–153
of Figs. 6 and 7. That is, for larger values of S∗ , the relative varia-
tion between these parameters is not significant, and the data for
larger sizes are more similar, and they tend to lie on the same line.
This study highlights the effect of the combination of  and Q˙
on the resulting fire whirl regimes. For naturally entraining config-
urations, the dependence of  on Q˙ was also observed. Regimes
close to extinction are not well documented in the literature,
which is one reason why the blue whirl was not found previously
in fire-whirl research. The scaling laws established here for the
blue whirl can help predict the conditions required to generate it
on a much larger scale.
5. Conclusion
Experiments were conducted in a fixed-frame, self-entraining
fire whirl configuration to investigate the conditions required for
formation of the blue whirl. A number of stable and transitional
fire whirl regimes were observed, including the blue whirl, transi-
tional blue whirl, stable fire whirl and large fire whirl. The flames
varied widely in dimension, appearance and stability, but show
constant circulation along the height in the free vortex region.
These regimes occupy distinct regions on maps of V˙ vs. S, and  vs.
Q˙ . The graphs reveal that the blue whirl forms in a narrow range
close to the extinction limit. Adding an overlapping section at the
leading edge of the inlet was found to help stabilize the blue whirl
and widen the limits of stable formation.
A dimensional analysis based on the apparatus length scale was
applied leading to several groups of parameters, including dimen-
sionless circulation, ΓD∗ , heat-release rate, Q˙ D∗ and gap size S∗ , nor-
malized by dimensions of the enclosure. The scaling law indicates
the conditions necessary to generate a particular flame regime, re-
gardless of the configuration dimensions, which can help predict
the transition limits between various flame regimes for a setup of a
given dimension. Experiments in a wider  – Q˙ space also need to
be performed to identify definite trends on the bifurcation and in-
form burner design. Measurements in the vicinity of the flame will
be helpful in understanding the local physics even more. Detailed
flow-field measurements using techniques such as PIV or PLIF are
suggested to obtain information at the vortex core, which may be
compared to fire whirl literature.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by National Science Foundation (NSF)
under award CBET-1507623, the Bureau of Safety and Environmen-
tal Enforcement (BSEE), U.S. Department of the Interior, Washing-
ton, D.C., under Contract E17PC0 0 016, the University of Maryland
through the Minta Martin Endowment Funds in the Department of
Aerospace Engineering, and the Glenn L. Martin Institute Chaired
153
Professorship in the A. James Clark School of Engineering. MJG
acknowledges partial support from NSF award CBET-1554026. YH
acknowledges support from the China Scholarship Council (CSC,
no. 201606210356). The authors thank Prof. Forman Williams for
thoughtful discussions, and the reviewers for their suggestions in
improving the manuscript. Any opinions, findings and conclusions
or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the au-
thors and do not necessarily reflect the view of the NSF, BSEE or
CSC.
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