The objective of the current research is to explore the merging phenomena of flames generated by burning of two neighboring identical shrubs. To conduct this study, we use a physics-based model which utilizes large eddy simulation for flame turbulence and a two-phase approach for coupling solid and gas phases. The modeling setup consists of two crown fuels (two shrubs) adjacent to each other, simultaneously ignited from their bases with the aid of two separate ground fuels lying beneath the respective crown fuels. Both crown and ground fuels are modeled as porous media with thermophysical properties that of chamise and excelsior, respectively. The burning history of individual shrubs, when separated by a center-to-center distance of 1.5 times the shrub diameter, is found to be almost similar to that of a single shrub, indicating an absence of fire interactions. Modeling results also indicate that the peak mass loss rate for the shrubs and the vertical fire spread rate within the shrubs decrease with an increase of the crown separation distance.
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