Investigation of Aerodynamic Characteristics of Double V

nozzle with Jet Interactions for Fire Extinguishers

Surekha Rathi Samundi D1, Keerthana D2, and Guru Vishali D3
1Assistant
Professor, Aeronautical department, Rajalakshmi Engineering College, Chennai, TamilNadu, India.
2 Under Graduate Student, Aeronautical department, Rajalakshmi Engineering College, Chennai, India.
3 Under Graduate Student, Aeronautical department, Rajalakshmi Engineering College, Chennai, India.

†Corresponding Author Email: surekha.aero@gmail.com

ABSTRACT
The objective of this study is to design and analyze an optimized fire suppression spray and to prospect the
aerodynamic qualities at the exit of the spray. A double V setup affixed with full cone spray configurations like the
spiral and swirl nozzle is designed to increase the laminar region in the core resulting in delayed turbulence caused
by jet interactions. This nozzle then compared by positioning it at different orientations (110ᴼ, 120ᴼ & 130ᴼ) and
dimensions. Hence, the performance characteristics such as flow pattern, spray angle, nozzle efficiency, droplet
size, and distribution are studied. The designed nozzle simulated in CFX under the inlet pressure of 2-5 bar. The
CFD Analysis concludes that the Double V nozzle with the spiral combination is capable of covering a large area
and the swirl nozzle is capable for high intensity and convincing with solid cone pattern in the core. The precise
droplets achieved due to jet interactions which give better efficiency in comparison with the existing fire suppression
sprays. The Experiment is contrived with the fabrication of double V setup with the 120ᴼ angle with ¼ inch swirl or
spiral nozzle at the inner part and 3/8 inch swirl or spiral nozzle at the outer part of double V setup.

Keywords/ Index Term— Fire suppression nozzle, jet interactions, solid cone, laminar turbulent transition

1. INTRODUCTION exhaust. Due to this structure, we require a series of

The Spray nozzles are of considerable importance in
fire suppression and in many industrial applications
such as crop duster, food coating, textile
humidification, continuous casting cooling, exhaust
scrubber etc., Over many decades, extensive design
work with spray nozzles has produced highly
engineered devices in distinct types and styles. Fire is
destructive and the smoke from a fire creates a toxic
and dangerous atmosphere. The rapid espial of fire and
its control can save millions of lives, thousands of
injuries, and billions of dollars in property loss each
year. The Hawaii volcano eruption in the year 2018
motivated us to develop an efficient fire suppression
system that best suits today’s world scenario.
Nationwide, 8.5 million acres, an area larger than a
state in the US have burned in the year 2018. The
wildfire season in California is the deadliest with a total
of 8,527 fires burning an area of 1,893,913 acres,
according to the California Department of Forestry and
Fire Protection (Cal Fire) and the National Interagency
Fire Centre (NIFC), as of December 21, 2018. The fires
have caused more than 350 crores in damages,
including 179.2 crores in fire suppression costs. As
long as fire suppression and extinguishment has
protected our lives and property, we have been devising
ways to deliver a good suppression system that can
overcome all the drawbacks of the present. The existing
fire suppression system consists of Hollow Cone spray
sprays to cover a particular area. This can be replaced
by our design which provides a solid Cone formation
in the core, in turn, reduces the retainment rate and time
to cover a particular area. Spraying systems widely
used in various applications from household to defence.
Fire retardant is one of those kinds. Fire retardant
material can be pure water or a chemical known as
Foscheck (80% Water + 10% ammonia phosphate and
sulphate ions). The opening may be in the fuselage or
at the tail section in case of the fire suppression system
is in aircraft. Zhigang Liu, & Kim, A. K. (1999)
published on the topic “A Review of Water Mist Fire
Suppression Systems— Fundamental Studies”
explained the effectiveness of a water mist system in
fire suppression. The fire suppression system is
dependent on spray characteristics like droplet sizes,
distribution of water droplets, spray dynamics and flux
density. It also includes fire scenario such as shielding
of the fuel, fire size, and ventilation conditions. On the
other hand, other factors such as enclosure effect and
the dynamic mixing created by the discharge of water
mist, also affect the performance of water mist in fire
suppression. Jinsong Hua, (2003) from Singapore
published on the topic "Spray head and nozzle
arrangement for fire suppression" The water spray
source consists of a body with 'w' fashioned base, a
cavity and two rings of liquid mist nozzles on the
leaning walls of the 'w' fashioned base. The liquid mist
splashes from the nozzle at the inner ring may strike
with each other directly or tangentially to form finer With this dimension, we can design spiral and swirl
liquid droplets and uniformly distributed water spray nozzles.
pattern. Kim, A. K., & Dlugogorski, B. Z. (1996)
published on the topic “Multipurpose Overhead
Compressed-Air Foam System and Its Fire Suppression
Performance” in Journal of Fire Protection Engineering
The Compressed Air Foam (CAF) system develop
foams by infusing compressed air into the flowing
foam solution. The emanate foam can portray excellent
fire-mitigation properties. This is because compressed-
air foams, at the expansion ratios of between 1:4 to
1:10, consist of very small and uniform-in-size air
bubbles. The system needs little water to operate and is
able to provide effective protection against Class A and
B fires. Y. Xia, M. Alshehhi, L. Khezzar (2018) Fig 1: Swirl nozzle Fig 2: Spiral Nozzle
published a paper on the topic “Spray Characteristics
of Free Air-on-Water Impinging Jets” where they Swirl and spiral nozzles are predominantly known as
measured the droplet size and its behaviour at various full cone nozzles which is already in existence. These
stages during jet impingements. Measurement of nozzles are in turn attached to a “Double V Setup”
droplet size is achieved with Phase Doppler (DVS) which can be efficiently used for Fire
Anemometry and High Speed Photography. From the Suppression systems. The Double V setup is designed
droplet size, measurement of velocity and liquid with appropriate dimensions and are subjected to
volume flux can be determined. From the spray changes if necessary. The significance of designing a
visualization, the breakup regions are observed. The double v nozzle is for jet interaction. With the
mean axial velocity and mean size of droplets including interaction we can increase the laminar region with
the mass flow rate is studied. delayed turbulence which helped in reaching more
heights with laminar characteristics. The Double V
nozzle is designed with three variations, where the jet
2. DESIGN interactions happen in 110ᴼ,120ᴼ and 130ᴼ.

The Double V Nozzle was designed in CATIA V5. The

associated swirl and spiral nozzles are designed. The
dimensions were taken from the BSPT (British
Standard Pipe Thread) table.
Table 1: BSPT Table
British Standard Pipe Taper (BSPT) Threads Chart

Fig 3: 2-D Double V Setup

From BSPT Table,
Thread Size = ¼” (say)
Threads/Inch = 19 per Inch
For ¼ Inch = 4.75 thread
(Height)T = Threads/Inch * Pitch
(Height)T = 4.75 * 1.337 mm
= 6.35 mm Fig 4: DVS at 110ᴼ Fig 5: DVS at 120ᴼ
Diameter = 13.157 mm
 Fig 6: DVS at 130ᴼ
The full cone nozzles are then attached to the Double
V setup to cover large area and for laminar flow.
Fig 7 and Fig 8: DVS with swirl and nozzle spiral
Thus, the Double V Setup and the full cone nozzles are
designed and the same is used for computational
analysis. Here we have considered only ¼ inch for
calculating the Diameter and thread size of the nozzles.
The consideration of 3/8 inch is made for spiral nozzles
for covering large area. Several cases can be formed by
varying the sizes and the nozzles at different
orientations in Double V Setup. Designing swirl nozzle
is same with respect to the size according to BSPT. In
spiral we can have several orientations of the exit for
the same diameter and thread size. It can be used
according to the requirement.
3. COMPUTATIONAL FLUID
DYNAMICS
The computational analysis is carried out by the design
modelled in CATIA V5 (mentioned above). The design
is then modelled in ANSYS 15 Fluent. This is them
meshed with Patch Independency. This algorithm
ensures refinement of the mesh where necessary, but
maintains larger elements where possible, allowing for
faster computation. Once the "root" tetrahedron, which
encloses the entire geometry, has been initialized, the
Patch Independent mesher subdivides the root
tetrahedron until all element size requirements. At each
subdivision step, the edge length of the tetrahedron
(=size) is divided by 2. This means that the prescribed
sizes should all differ by factors that are an integer
power of 2. The size of the root tetra is set to the
smallest given size multiplied by 2 n. All other
prescribed sizes are approximated by subdividing the
root tetra. In addition to that “Body sizing” is carried
out in two streams in the same domain which further
increases the size of the mesh by refining it minutely.
Approximately there were 10 lakh elements.
Fig 9: Meshed model
Once the mesh is satisfactory, launch the Fluent
Launcher in serial processing type with double
precision. By checking the scale and Report quality has
to be analysed for the required range. Pressure-based
solver is used with absolute velocity formulation and
steady state condition. The gravity has to mentioned in
the negative Z direction so that we imply the water to
undergo gravity. After setting the General solution
setup, multiphase has to activated to mention both the
air and water. Both are in two different phases; hence
we need to select the Volume of Fluid model for our
analysis. The VOF model can model two or more
immiscible fluids by solving a single set of momentum
equations and tracking the volume fraction of each of
the fluids throughout the domain. The VOF
formulation in FLUENT is generally used to compute
a time-dependent solution, but for problems in which
you are concerned only with a steady-state solution, it
is possible to perform a steady-state calculation. A
steady-state VOF calculation is sensible only when
your solution is independent of the initial conditions
and there are distinct inflow boundaries for the
individual phases. The tracking of the interface(s)
between the phases is accomplished by the solution of
a continuity equation for the volume fraction of one (or
more) of the phases.
where mpq is the mass transfer from phase q to phase p
and mpq is the mass transfer from phase p to phase q.
The Explicit scheme is chosen for better results. In the
explicit approach, FLUENT's standard finite-
difference interpolation schemes are applied to the
volume fraction values that were computed at the
previous time step.
 where = index for new (current)
time step

= index for previous time

step
= face value of the qth
volume fraction,
computed from the first-
or second-order upwind,
QUICK, modified
HRIC, or CICSAM
scheme
= volume of cell Fig 12: Volume rendering of DVS
= volume flux through the
face, based on normal
velocity

This formulation does not require iterative solution of

the transport equation during each time step, as is
needed for the implicit scheme. The Volume fraction
parameters are set as default. The volume Fraction Cut-
off and Courant Number are 1e-06 and 0.25 Fig 13: Vertical plane for swirl nozzle
respectively. Viscous model is also introduced due to
turbulence behaviour of the water. Standard K- Epsilon
model is selected using our reference paper. The phases
such as air and water have to be added. The Boundary 2.50E+01
Comparative Study of Swirl nozzle at
conditions are set at the inlet. Pressure inlet has to be
mentioned with Gauge Total Pressure of 2 bar. The
different pressures
2.00E+01 3 bar
volume fraction has to be set as 1 at the inlet in 2.5 bar
Multiphase. At the opening the Gauge pressure is set as
Velocity m/s

2 bar
zero. The solution Initialization is set as Hybrid. 1.50E+01

1.00E+01

5.00E+00

0.00E+00 X in m
-6.00E-01
-4.00E-01
-2.00E-010.00E+002.00E-014.00E-016.00E-01

Fig 14: Comparative study of swirl nozzle at

different pressures

Fig 10: Horizontal plane contour for DVS

4. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP AND
PROCEDURE

The experimental setup is designed at certain height

Fig 11: Vertical plane contour for DVS
(say 2 metre from the ground) to analyse the flow. The
setup consists of Pressurized air Storage tank and water
tank to store water. The pressurized air from the air
Storage tank pressurises the water in the water tank.
The pressurized water is then directed to reach the
“Double V Setup” with the help of pressure gauges and
gate valves. The required pressure at the nozzle exit can
be regulated with the help of pressure gauges. One
pressure gauge is placed at the water tank inlet and the
other before the Double V Setup. In addition to the can be calculated manually. And the height of the water
gauges, Valves are present to adjust the flow. can be determined using scale after the experiment. The
water tray is fabricated with 100 X 80 cm with the
sections of 10 X 10 cm.

Fig 15: Experimental Setup

The Pressure gauges were calibrated using a standard
gauge (master gauge) to determine the deviation of the
available gauges. The plot is made with respect to
master and calibration gauges to find the accuracy of
the available gauges. If the changes are within the
tolerance limits, we can proceed with the available else
replace the gauges.

Fig 17: Water tray made of acrylic sheet

The swirl nozzle is purchased for ¼ inch and the spiral

nozzle is of 3/8 inch. To fix the nozzle at the inlet of
the pipe suitable adapters should be fixed at both the
ends.

Fig 18: Spiral nozzle Fig 19: Swirl nozzle

Fig. 16. Pressure Storage Tank

The intensity of the water can be calculated with Water
tray setup. A tray is made with 3mm Acrylic material
which is subdivided into small equal sections. Using
those sections, we can calculate the volume of water
with the volume formula Length x Breadth x Height.
The length and breadth of the water tray and its sections
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