Water curtains are used for shielding thermal radiation from combustion sources. Unlike fire-protection structures, they provide fire containment without blocking the movement of people and they allow firefighters and trucks to approach the combustion source. Water curtains can be produced by fixed-site automatic systems to prevent fire from spreading to the neighboring fire compartment or by nozzles attached to a fire-fighting truck or pipeline. Here we studied the shielding of thermal radiation from a typical compartment fire with a view to developing a prediction model. To record the water curtain characteristics, we used the experimental methods of Particle Image Velocimetry and Shadow Photography. The heat fluxes were recorded at different distances from the radiation source ranging from 300 to 1000 mm. We have established how the coefficient of heat flux absorption by the water curtain depends on the characteristics of the latter: thickness (100–400 mm), droplet size (10–120 μm), and volume concentration (0.005–0.04 L/m³). The greatest influence on the absorption intensity comes from the total droplet evaporation area. Based on the experimental data, we have developed a physical and mathematical model estimating the impact of scattered radiation on thermal transmittance from the combustion source. Using this model, we have determined the necessary parameters of water curtains, such as length, width, thickness, and droplet size, for the effective shielding of thermal radiation from combustion sources with different heat fluxes.

水幕用于屏蔽来自燃烧源的热辐射。与防火结构不同，它们可以在不阻碍人员流动的情况下提供防火功能，并且允许消防员和卡车接近燃烧源。水幕可以由固定地点的自动系统产生，以防止火势蔓延到邻近的防火隔间，或者由连接到消防车或管道的喷嘴产生。在这里，我们研究了典型隔间火灾的热辐射屏蔽，以开发预测模型。为了记录水幕特征，我们使用了粒子图像测速和阴影摄影的实验方法。在距辐射源 300 至 1000 毫米的不同距离处记录热通量。³）。对吸收强度的最大影响来自总液滴蒸发面积。根据实验数据，我们开发了一个物理和数学模型，用于估算散射辐射对燃烧源热透射率的影响。使用该模型，我们确定了水幕的必要参数，例如长度、宽度、厚度和液滴尺寸，以有效屏蔽来自具有不同热通量的燃烧源的热辐射。