- Author
- Desmarais, L. A. | Tolle, F. F.
- Title
- Integrated Aircraft Fuel Tank Inerting and Compartment Fire Suppression System. Volume 1. Preliminary Design, Optimization, and Integration. Final Report. August 1979-October 1982.
- Coporate
- Boeing Military Airplane Co., Seattle, WA
- Sponsor
- Aero Propulsion Lab., Wright-Patterson AFB, OH
- Report
- AFAPL-TR-83-2021, Volume 1, April 1983, 107 p.
- Distribution
- LIMITED DISTRIBUTION Available from National Technical Information Service
- Contract
- F33615-79-C-2027
- Keywords
- aircraft fuel tanks | fire extinguishing agents | inerting | compartment fires | fire suppression | liquid nitrogen | oxygen concentration
- Identifiers
- fire extinguishing agents
- Abstract
- Aircraft onboard generation of nitrogen-enriched air (NEA) for fuel tank inerting offers significant advantages over the stored liquid nitrogen concept currently in use. In addition, NEA has been proven effective in suppressing simulated aircraft compartment fires. The preliminary design of an integrated aircraft fuel tank inerting and compartment fire suppression system was performed using the C-5A as the study aircraft. Bleed air conditioning systems were designed for both types of inert gas generating (IGG) modules currently under development, the permeable membrane and the mulecular sieve. Computer models were developed to calculate the NEA required for fuel scrubbing and fuel system pressurization and to predict the behavior of compartment oxygen concentrations and pressure increases when NEA is applied as a fire extinguishant. The NEA based system designs compare favorably with the existing LN2 system C-5A LN2 in terms of weight, cost, and protection afforded. The effectiveness of NEA as a fire extinguishant was studied during an extensive test program conducted prior to the system design studies described above. This test work is reported in Volume 2 of this document.