Characteristics and Identification of Super-Effective Thermal Fire-Extinguishing Agents. Final Report, NGP Project 4C/1/890. (Released July 2006)

摘要

The use of halon 1301 for fire fighting is being phased out due to its deleterious effects on stratospheric ozone. This report summarizes the findings of a three-year study designed to characterize and identify super-effective thermal fire-fighting agents as possible replacements for these widely used compounds. Four distinct aspects related to the effectiveness of potential thermal agents have been considered. First, existing thermodynamic databases maintained by NIST have been searched in order to identify chemical compounds which are predicted to extract large amounts of heat from a combustion zone. Second, two liquids that were identified as being particularly interesting during the database search were tested experimentally for their extinguishing effectiveness. Third, detailed chemical-kinetic modeling and experimental studies of extinguishing volume fractions in simple flame systems were employed to improve the understanding of the effects of thermal agents on diffusion flames. Fourth, empirical heat transfer correlations for spray cooling of a surface were used to estimate the efficiencies of surface cooling by thermal agents.