While the banning of Halon has meant a return to the installation of CO_2 for fixed fire-fighting equipment in most merchant ship new-buildings there are now alternatives available, often at similar overall costs. George Dicker, Unitor's sales director for ships equipment, says that for larger vessels, and especially big tankers, FPSOs and LNG carriers, there is a clear move towards high expansion internal air foam systems. He says: "Most of the oil majors are ordering these systems." This type of foam has an expansion factor of about 700 to 1, less than the 1,000 to 1 of the early high expansion systems but they relied on outside air and ducting to deliver the foam into the space to be flooded.
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