Study on the Combustion of Polymers Within Cooling Towers

摘要

Risk: The outcome of analyzing the probability of something happening and the associated consequence of that thing, or things, happening. The cooling tower industry has attempted to convey to their customers what the fire risk factors may be for a particular cooling tower by adapting existing test methods designed for other industries and trying to make them fit its industry and products. From tests that were designed to determine the flame spread potential for wall covering materials in buildings to tests conducted by insurance companies designed to show a cooling tower's ability to contain a fire event, the industry seems to not be able to provide a good recommendation or system of methodology to an owner on whether or not the polymers within a cooling tower pose a high or low risk of catching on fire. Not only catching on fire to start with, but also the risk potential for a polymer to sustain a flame and to continue the combustion process. This paper will discuss the science behind the inherent burning characteristics of polymers that are widely used as the heat transfer media, or fill media, within cooling towers, including how they burn and how flame retardants work to minimize the burning characteristics. Additionally, this paper will look at the ignition characteristics with respect to cooling towers in real-world scenarios outside of a laboratory and will also look at the current test methods that the cooling tower industry has borrowed to determine if the testing outcomes provide an accurate portrayal to an end user of the total flammability risk for a particular fill media. Upon review of these items we can then attempt to determine if the current test methods being used are sufficient to allow an owner to be able to evaluate the risk involved with selecting one type of cooling tower fill over another.