- Author
-
Martindill, G. H.
|
Spolan, I.
|
Kuchta, J. M.
- Title
- Fire Suppression for Aerospace Vehicles. Technical Report.
- Coporate
- Bureau of Mines, Pittsburgh, PA
- Sponsor
- Air Force Aero Propulsion Lab., Wright-Patterson AFB, OH
- Report
-
AFAPL-TR-70-39; SRC Report S4137,
July 1970,
35 p.
- Distribution
- Available from National Technical Information Service
- Contract
- F33615-69-M-5002
- Keywords
-
fire suppression
|
halon 1301
|
fire extinguishers
|
aircraft safety
|
combustion products
|
test methods
|
hydrocarbons
|
cotton fabrics
|
fire tests
|
toxicity
- Identifiers
- suppression
- Abstract
- Fire extinguishing experiments were conducted to evaluate Halon 1301 as an extinguishant of Class A fires by the total flooding mode for possible use in advanced aircraft. The effectiveness of the extinguishant was determined by burning cotton sheeting in a 216 cubic foot chamber at various combustible loadings, preburn times, and extinguishant discharge pressures or rates. Extinguishing times increased with increased combustible loading but varied little with preburn time and Halon discharge pressure when the Halon concentration in the chamber was 6 volume percent. With this concentration, cotton sheeting fires at a loading of 0.035 oz/ft3 were extinguished within 2 seconds or less using Halon discharge pressures of 220, 350, and 700 psig. A 3 percent Halon concentration appeared to be inadequate under most test conditions. With 6 percent Halon, the toxicity hazard from the formation of CO, HF, or HBr was relatively small for preburn times of 15 seconds or less. The concentration of toxic product vapors increased noticeably when the total burning period before extinguishment was increased from 15 to 25 seconds. Under all test conditions, the toxic product concentrations after equilibrium conditions prevailed were much less than the lethal concentrations reported for short exposure times. Data also are presented on the rates of pressure rise and mass consumption that characterized the cotton sheeting fires.