Qualification of an Acceptable Alternative to Halon 1211 DOD Flightline Extinguishers

摘要

The U.S. Navy and the U.S. Air Force use 150-pound Halon 1211 fire extinguishers for firstresponse fire suppression on flightlines. This ESTCP demonstration project was initiated to identify and test commercially available alternative agents and delivery systems as potential replacements for these extinguishers. Three agent/hardware combinations were selected for testing: DuPont s FE-36 with Ansul s FE-300 hardware; American Pacific Corporation s Halotron I with Buckeye s W-150 hardware; and Halotron I with Amerex 674 hardware. Testing was conducted at Tyndall Air Force Base (AFB), FL, using a standard F-100 Engine-Nacelle Test Fixture, to evaluate the firefighting performance of candidate agents/systems. None of the systems tested matched the extinguishing performance of the existing Halon 1211 system. Only 30 percent of the test fires were extinguished, compared to all fires being extinguished in the Halon 1211 baseline tests. There is insufficient data resulting from this testing to be able to consider whether use of one of the tested agents in larger quantities would result in greater success.