Failure of the storage containers often leads to the release of flammable liquid. The fuel may burn while spread, and forms a spill fire. The fuel depth in a spill fire is quite shallow, which makes the burning rate of the spill fire much different with that of the pool fire. In this paper, the n-heptane spill fire was experimentally studied on both flat surface and inclined surface. The burning fuel thickness was measured for the first time. The burning fuel thickness helps establish a theoretical model for the spill fire burning rate, which shows consistent with the experimental data. The result indicates that the spill fire was dominated by the convection, with more than 90% of the total thermal heat feedback, for equivalent diameter ranging from 0.15 m to 0.35 m. It proves that the pool diameter in a spill fire for characterizing the transition from the convective control to the radiative control is larger than that in the pool fire. A comprehensive understanding for the spill fire may be achieved with further studies towards the burning fuel depth, based on the measurement method presented in this work.

储存容器的故障经常导致易燃液体的释放。燃料在扩散时可能会燃烧，并形成溢出火。溢出火的燃料深度很浅，这使得溢出火的燃烧速度与池火的燃烧速度有很大差异。本文在平面和斜面上对正庚烷泄漏火灾进行了实验研究。首次测量了燃烧燃料的厚度。燃烧燃料厚度有助于建立溢火燃烧速率的理论模型，与实验数据一致。结果表明，溢流火灾以对流为主，当量直径为0.15 m至0.35 m时，占总热反馈的90%以上。证明了用于表征从对流控制向辐射控制过渡的溢出火灾中的池直径大于池火灾中的池直径。根据本工作中提出的测量方法，通过对燃烧燃料深度的进一步研究，可以全面了解溢出火灾。