Water Mist Simplification Effects on Fire Suppression Modeling:

A Challenge to the Industry

G. A. Tanner* and K. F. Knasiak
Spraying Systems Co.
Industrial Products Division
P.O. Box 7900
Wheaton, IL 60189-7900 USA

Abstract
As the use of water mist continues to gain acceptance as a practical fire suppression agent, the fire protection industry and computational fluid dynamic software designers continue to struggle with methods to model the formation,
delivery and flame interaction of water mist drops. Several efforts have been made over recent years to do just that,
with positive results and incredible progress. However, a simulation is only as meaningful as the quality of the initial assumptions and parameters used to drive the model, whether it is using a single bulk drop size statistic to characterize the entire spray field, ignoring the affect of radial position and fluid pressure, or simply a lack of practical
understanding of spray nozzle technology. It is with this in mind that the authors offer a challenge to the fire protection and the computational fluid dynamic software industries: incorporate a comprehensive water mist droplet characterization into fire suppression models.

* Corresponding author
As presented at ILASS Americas, 20th Annual Conference on Liquid Atomization and Spray Systems, Chicago, IL, May 2007

Introduction
As long as fire suppression and extinguishment has
protected our lives and property, we have been devising
ways to deliver the suppression agent to the fire. Ever
since the fire sprinklers were invented, the technology
and complexity of extinguishment methodology has
grown at a truly exponential rate. Today, there are literally hundreds, if not thousands of ways to dispense
the extinguishing agent. The innovation and diversity of
these systems is seen to be driven by application to
solve specific fire problems.
With spray nozzles, extensive design work over
many decades has produced highly engineered devices
in innumerable types and styles. Engineered sprays
have been developed for many thousands of applications and industries, and this has also been largely
driven by specific needs. Many spray styles developed
originally for other purposes have been applied to fire
protection. Setting aside pneumatic atomization or dry
chemical extinguishment sprays, consider that hydraulic
atomizing and impingement nozzles are available in
hollow cone, full cone, spiral, flat, or even square and
oval spray patterns. The selection that is commercially
available is very broad and can create considerable confusion for engineers looking to integrate the proper
spray nozzle into an extinguishment or suppression
system. With single orifice, cluster heads, and spray
angles ranging from 0 to 360 in common use, the fire
system designer must determine which type of nozzle
works in different fire hazard applications.
With each general application and set of installation parameters, approval agencies and the Authority
Having Jurisdiction (AHJ) require only specific coverage or spray angle and flow density, which are believed
to be the most relevant parameters of spray performance in various situations.
As the applications become more specific to water
mist fire suppression, the additional factor of drop size
is taken into consideration. However, there is no current water mist fire protection standard that requires
listings to include basic drop size information such as
the Volume Median Diameter (VMD) or Sauter Mean
Diameter (SMD). Rather, water mist systems must be
listed for specific fire hazards requiring live fire performance validation, a time consuming and financially
burdensome endeavor.
The potential alternative to physical testing is to
use advanced computational analysis to design, build,
performance test, and certify a fire suppression system
before a pipe is ever laid. Computational simulation of
water mist fire suppression though is an incredibly
complex undertaking. Modeling the physics of water
droplet and flame interaction, heat absorption and
evaporation, vapor displacement, fuel combustion, and
temperature reduction are just part of what needs to be

analyzed to accurately predict the fire suppression capabilities of a water mist protection system.
One of the more important criteria, however, is
also the most overlooked and ignored. In the vast majority of simulation efforts to date, water drop size distribution statistics are simplified down to the minimal
amount of data required to convey the maximum information possible. In some cases a single parameter,
such as VMD, was the only statistic used.
Perhaps this is because drop size information can
be considered to be confusing and overly complex.
This is generally the case with fire protection when
discussing sprinkler and nozzle drop size statistics.
After all, the research focuses on system suppression
and extinguishment characteristics and not spray nozzles. But, is it proper and accurate to fully characterize
a water mist or other spray nozzle in such an abridged
manner?
Fire protection designers have recently begun to
realize that nozzles cannot be simplified down to a single number such as a representative diameter. Whether
that specification is the VMD, SMD or DV0.9, it is not
an accurate representation of the entire spray field or
spray distribution. Despite this recognition, there are
such limited standards and certification guidelines to
work from that the system designers and modelers are
basically picking whatever statistic is readily available
to them without appreciating the inherent limitations
and problems of doing so. Can parameters be used that
are sufficiently meaningful to completely and properly
characterize the spray?
Our purpose here is to show the limitations of using bulk drop size statistics, and to begin developing
guidelines and recommendations regarding water mist
drop size distribution that could be used within fire
suppression system computer modeling and design.
Affect of Radial Position and Pressure on Drop Size
In previous work by the authors [1], four nozzles
were tested at a typical operation pressure(s) for that
style nozzle. See Figs. 1-4 and Table 1.
Examining the spiral nozzle that was tested at two
operating pressures and measured at two distances from
the nozzle, one immediately sees the importance of
failing to include the radial position drop distribution.
See Table 2. Though there is minimal difference between the two operational pressures, there are dramatic
changes in the drop size as the measurement point is
increased radially on both measurement planes. Reviewing the volume flux weighted averages of all four
nozzles tested gives further examples of how the drop
statistics vary with measurement position and pressure.

Swirl type atomizer. See Figure 1.

This atomizer features an internal core through
which the liquid flow is directed with some tangential velocity component. The liquid is then forced
through an exit orifice in a hollow cone pattern.
2.2 gallons/min at 1000 psi pressure
Nominal Spray Angle = 77

Full cone nozzle. See Figure 3.

The full cone nozzle features an internal swirl element commonly known as a vane that imparts radial velocity and counter-swirl to form a full cone
pattern.
9.4 gallons/min at 100 psi pressure
Nominal Spray Angle = 68

Figure 1. Swirl type atomizer.

Figure 3. Full cone nozzle.

Cluster swirl type atomizer. See Figure 2.

This cluster head nozzle features seven individual
swirl type atomizer spray caps on a single body.
2.3 gallons/min at 1000 psi pressure
Nominal Spray Angle = 160

Spiral nozzle. See Figure 4.

The spiral nozzle is essentially a deflector type nozzle that creates a crude full cone spray pattern in a
tightly controlled spray angle, and usually features
the largest possible flow rate for a given pipe connection size.
9.5 gallons/min at 100 psi pressure
Nominal Spray Angle = 120

Figure 2. Cluster swirl type atomizer.

Spray Nozzle
Swirl Type
Atomizer
Cluster Swirl
Type Atomizer
Full Cone
Nozzle

Spiral Nozzle

Test Pressure
(bar)

Spray Height
(cm)

Figure 4. Spiral nozzle.

Volume Flux Weighted Averages (m)
DV0.5

DV0.1

38.1
95.2
55.3
61
90.6
42.9
38.1
86.3
47.2
68.9
61
107.1
50.9
38.1
334.1
136.2
6.89
61
332.6
136.5
38.1
298.3
120.1
10.34
61
284.5
124.8
38.1
151.2
93.1
6.89
61
179.5
120.0
38.1
157.0
98.8
10.34
61
177.9
121.5
Table 1. Spray Nozzle Drop Size Characteristics.
68.9

DV0.9

D32

134.7
146.3
127.1
172.3
601.5
594.1
545.5
495.5
206.5
234.1
211.6
228.3

90.5
79.6
78.4
90.2
286.5
296.1
256.5
255.3
168.2
177.4
170.1
179.8

Spiral Nozzle at 10.34 bar

Distance From
Radial Position
VMD
Nozzle (cm)
(cm)
(m)
25.4
80.4
38.1
38.1
119.4
50.8
206.3
12.7
106.9
61
38.1
118.8
63.5
210.5
Table 2. Spiral Nozzle at Several Radial Positions.
Difficulties With Drop Size Bulk Statistics
Significant attention has been given to the heat
transfer rate to water mist drops from the fire. It is
theoretically understood, and experimentally supported,
that water mist functions as an extinguishing agent in
several manners [7,8]. Smaller diameter droplets
evaporate in the flame, cooling the flame below critical
reaction temperatures. Larger droplets can penetrate
the flame and directly cool the burning fuel as well as
displacing oxygen with water vapor.
It has also been shown that the heat absorption rate
is a function of drop size [8]. As the drop diameter
decreases, the surface area to volume ratio increases
exposing a greater reaction area to heat radiation.

A = d 2
V=

d 3

Case
A
B
C

DV0.10
DV0.90
DV0.50
(m)
(m)
(m)
100.0
58.0
145.9
100.0
69.6
133.6
100.0
100.0
100.0
Table 3. Drop size statistics.

RSF
0.88
0.64
0

It should be noted that for all three cases the VMD

are the same. For case C, it is assumed that all drops of
100m are to be input to the model. For cases A and B,
though the VMDs are equivalent, the RSF is 0.88 and
0.64 respectively. Distributions producing cases A and
B are shown below in Figure 5.

(1)
(2)

However, minimal consideration is given to how

the drop size distribution within a spray field could affect the heat transfer rate and extinguishing capability
of water mist. All theoretical studies to date assume the
entire spray field is comprised of a single diameter water drop, though this is practically impossible to duplicate in the physical world.
More insight can be provided by looking at Relative Span Factor (RSF), an additional output from drop
size analysis that demonstrates the breadth of a nozzle
spray field. Given several nozzles with an identical
VMD and hence supposedly identical drop statistics by
this measure, a review of the RSF begins to show the
shortcomings of utilizing only a single drop size parameter to distinguish a spray.

RSF =

pared. See Table 3 for typical drop size statistics for

these three different cases.

DV 0.9 DV 0.1
DV 0.5

Figure 5. Drop size distributions for cases A and B.

These are simulated drop size distributions. The
intent of their creation is to provide a clear example of
how differing drop size distributions can have an effect
on overall model performance. Equation (4) was used
to develop the two distributions. Table 4 outlines the
equations parameters for the various given conditions.

N = N0 +

A
w

In order to further explore the implications of not

including sufficient atomization criteria into a model,
three different conditions will be looked at and com-

( DS DSc ) 2
)
w

N0
DSc
w
A

(4)

Case A
DS DSc

(3)

2(

DS > DSc

Case B
DS DSc

0
0
0
20.9
20.9
69.9
30
100
30
9200
30800
13100
Table 4. Parameters for (4).

DS > DSc

0
69.9
61.4
26900

To allow for comparison between all three of these

cases, all the distributions were normalized so that the
total overall volume produced in each case is 1cm3. If
we look at the count distributions, this can be observed
by noting the magnitude versus drops size of Case A vs.
Case B. This was done by inspecting the total volume
for each given case and then adjusting the count distribution by adjusting a multiplicative constant to achieve
the desired 1cm3 value. In each case, there is a significant change in overall drop count, see Table 5.
Figure 6 presents the surface area distribution as a
function of drop size for cases A and B. The objective
of this plot is to show how the surface area can be distributed across a spray as a function of drop size. We
can see that even though these two sprays have an
equivalent VMD there is a significant difference in how
the surface area is distributed among the varying drop
size classes. The fact that we see a difference of surface area change from 669.7cm2 for case A to 622.6cm2
for case B is significant. If we then look at the single
drop size case C we see that the total surface area has
fallen even further to 600cm2.

portant to heat and mass transfer studies. Incorporating

this additional information into fire suppression model
can have a significant effect on the overall results.
Droplet velocity and momentum may also have an
impact on model results. In a comparison between nozzle effects under certain conditions, this might be a key
indicator to initially provide information about which
nozzle may work best in a given situation.
For the purposes of this paper, since the drop size
distribution was modeled, a velocity distribution will
also be modeled. This is shown in Figure 7 and defined
by (5). This is actually a curve fit to an existent data set
with a similar drop size distribution. It defines the average velocity for each drop size class.
Vavg = A e

DS
t1

(5)

+ yo

Where: A = 12.6 (Amplitude)

t1 = -11.8 (decay constant)
y0 = 193.4 (offset)

Figure 6. Drop Surface Area.

As previously mentioned, in fire suppression, the
total surface area generated by a spray can be very im-

Case
A
B
C

DV0.50
(m)
100.0
100.0
100.0

Figure 7. Velocity distribution.

Drop
DV0.10
DV0.90
VTot
ATot
RSF
Count
(cm3)
(cm2)
(m)
(m)
58.0
145.9
0.88
5.93 x 106
1.0
669.7
69.6
133.6
0.64
2.74 x 106
1.0
622.6
100.0
100.0
0
1.91 x 106
1.0
600.0
Table 5. Surface area and momentum results for all cases.

v
P

(gcm/s)
550.6
554.7
554.6

Momentum ( P ) is a factor that will allow us to determine how far a spray will penetrate into a given environment. The greater the sprays momentum, the farther the spray plume will reach. This can be used as a
determining factor in selecting which type of nozzle to
use for a specific application. For instance, if the goal
is to provide a mist that will evaporate within a compartment for oxygen displacement, the choice of a high
momentum spray would not be the right choice. A high
momentum spray will have either a large drop size
(works against evaporation), a high velocity (may cause
drop to impinge on a surface) or both. In this case, a
spray with small drops and low velocities might be the
best choice.
Case A, B and C all generate very similar total
momentums. Since all have been normalized so that
the total mass is the same, and the same velocity profile
is used in all cases, this is to be expected. Though case
A shows particle momentum values larger than case B
for the small and large particle sizes, case B would
more likely penetrate further. This is because you can
see that where the largest momentum values are located
within the drop size distribution, case B has maximum
values that are on the order of 150% greater than case
A, see Figure 8. Case C would be an extreme of the
penetration demonstrated by case B since all of the
momentum is deposited in the drops that are similar in
size to where the other two cases show their maximum
momentum values.

Nozzle Discharge Coefficient (K-factor)

In attempting to gain some commonality between
various sprinkler and nozzle manufactures, it has become readily accepted by the fire protection community
to use the nozzle discharge coefficient K (6) for system
design [2,3,4].

K=

Q
P

(6)

Derived from the Bernoulli and Continuity equations, the nozzle discharge coefficient is a functional
and robust tool, but it has inherent limitations on its use
and only yields correct results in steady, incompressible, frictionless, and streamline flow. [5]
In order to properly characterize nozzles for use in
fire protection systems, one needs a K-factor that is
constant over the entire flow range. Unfortunately,
many types of real commercial nozzles tend to exhibit
unusual flow behavior when closely scrutinized.
Though most hydraulic nozzles and nearly all sprinklers
follow a normal hydraulic curve, highly engineered
sprays, as opposed to standard deflection type sprinklers, often contain complex internal and external geometries used to form the distinctive spray patterns.
See Figure 9.

Figure 9. Full cone type nozzle with internal flow vane

imparting radial velocity on fluid.
Through repeated laboratory testing over the
course of many years, we have found that considering
the pressure exponent as a variable rather than a constant serves quite well in providing a consistent discharge coefficient for each type spray nozzle in many
cases. (7, 8) See Tables 6, 7 [1]

Figure 8. Momentum distribution.

Q
Pn
Q = K Pn
K=

(7)
(8)

Wide Angle Full Cone Nozzle

Km (bar/lpmn)
P (bar)
Q (lpm)
n = 0.50
n = 0.45
0.4
8.8
13.9
13.3
0.5
9.8
13.9
13.4
0.7
11.4
13.6
13.4
1.0
13.5
13.5
13.5
1.5
16.2
13.2
13.5
2.0
18.5
13.1
13.5
3.0
22
12.7
13.4
4.0
25
12.5
13.4
6.0
30
12.2
13.4
Table 6. Constant K over flow range.
Spray Nozzle Types
n
Sprinklers
0.50
Swirl Type Atomizer
0.50
Cluster Swirl Type Atomizer
0.50
Spiral nozzle
0.50
Full Cone
0.47
Wide Angle Full Cone
0.44 - 0.46
Table 7. Pressure exponents for spray nozzles.
Understanding that the system designers currently
use and prefer the generally accepted 0.50 exponent due
to its inherent simplicity and near universality, nozzle
users should exercise caution. One cannot assume that
all K-factors and the pressure exponents used are interchangeable and calculated under identical conditions.
The best course in these situations is to conduct discharge tests or ask the nozzle manufacturer for their
assistance in providing data for specific sprays.

Conclusion and Recommendations

Our purpose here has been to discuss some aspects
of sprays that are largely ignored in the fire protection
industry, and we challenge the fire protection industry
and software developers to include the entire drop distribution for the spray into your simulations.
The authors urge caution when including bulk
spray statistics in fire suppression modeling. It is important to consider that using single numbers to represent the entire spray distribution may hide critical variations in spray field properties that affect the results for a
system in application. In addition, probing deeper with
differences within the spray field such as velocity, momentum, radial distance, fluid pressure, and nozzle discharge coefficient may provide some insight when systems or models do not perform as expected.
Fire protection standards organizations are beginning to recommend the collection and reporting of this
data [6]. We expect the continued development of
these recommendations over time as computational
simulation is further employed for design and eventually certification.

Nomenclature
A
surface area
V
volume
D
diameter
Km
nominal discharge coefficient, metric
Q
fluid flow rate
Pv
fluid pressure
P
momentum
N
total drop size count for each class
N0
initial drop size count for each class
w
half peak width of Gaussian
Subscripts
c
center
0
initial
Tot total
Superscripts
n
fluid pressure exponent

References
Tanner, G.A. and Knasiak, K.F., Spray Characterization of Typical Fire Suppression Nozzles, Third International Water Mist Conference, Madrid, Spain, September 2003.
1. NFPA 13, Installation of Sprinkler Systems, National Fire Protection Association, Northbrook, IL,
2002
2. UL Standard 2167, Water Mist Nozzles for Fire
Protection Service, Underwriters Laboratories Inc.,
Northbrook, IL, 2002
3. Approval Standard for Water Mist Systems, Class
Number 5560, Factory Mutual Research Corp.,
Norwood, MA, 2005
4. Fox, R.W., and McDonald, A.T., Introduction to
Fluid Mechanics, 4th Ed., New York: John Wiley
and Sons, 1992
5. NFPA 750, Standard on Water Mist Fire Protection
Systems, National Fire Protection Association,
Northbrook, IL, 2006
6. Jayaweera, T.M. and Yu, H.Z., Physical Scaling of
Water Mist Fire Suppression, Sixth International
Water Mist Conference, Budapest, Hungary, October 2006.
Husted, B.P., Holmstedt, G., Hertzberg, T., The Physics Behind Water Mist Systems, Fourth International
Water Mist Conference, Rome, Italy, October 2004.

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