OPTIMIZATION OF WATER DROPLETS USE FOR EFFECTIVE FOREST FIREFIGHTING WITH THE USE OF AIRCRAFT: MATHEMATICAL MODELING AND EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS

Abstract

The stages of the development of a mathematical model to improve the efficiency of aerial firefighting are presented. The formulas for modeling the dynamics of droplets and their thermal properties in the conditions of real fires are considered. The concept of physical stability of droplets during aerial firefighting, which is directly proportional to the Weber number, is applied. The results of experimental studies used to construct 3D graphs in this paper are presented.

A decision algorithm is developed that incorporates the equations of droplet motion, aerodynamic drag calculations, convective flow modeling, and additional theories such as the Rayleigh-Taylor and Kelvin-Helmoglötz mechanisms to analyze droplet fragmentation. A simulation was developed in the Python programming language using the Matplotlib library. The simulation generates the trajectories of multiple water droplets based on defined parameters such as the initial jet height, the maximum initial droplet velocity, and the range of ejection angles. The trajectory of each drop is calculated taking into account gravity. The coding results confirm that the optimal choice of droplet size, ejection height, and velocity increases the efficiency of forest fire suppression by 25 to 74%, depending on the components of the system and the parameterization of the data. The model also demonstrates the importance of adapting the extinguishing strategy to specific fire and meteorological conditions.