- Author
-
Gottuk, D. T.
|
Scheffey, J. L.
|
Williams, F. W.
|
Gott, J. E.
|
Tabet, R. J.
- Title
- Optical Fire Detection (OFD) for Military Aircraft Hangars. Final Report on OFD Performance to Fuel Spill Fires and Optical Stresses.
- Coporate
- Hughes Associates, Inc., Baltimore, MD
Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Washington, DC
- Sponsor
- Washington Navy Yard, Washington, DC
- Report
-
NRL/MR/6180-00-8457,
May 22, 2000,
334 p.
- Keywords
-
aircraft hangars
|
fire detection
|
military aircraft
|
fuel spills
|
false alarms
|
fuel fires
|
hydrocarbon fuels
|
specifications
|
pool fires
|
JP-5 jet fuel
|
JP-8 jet fuel
- Identifiers
- Optical Fire Detection (OFD); hydrocarbon fuel fires
- Abstract
- The Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC) has conducted research efforts aimed at improving the design of fire protection systems in military aircraft hangars. The current hangar design strategy is to use low-level (under-wing) AFFF systems activated by optical fire detectors or manual pull stations. Existing Navy requirements limit low-level optical detection to combination ultraviolet and infrared (UVAR) flame detectors. Since the origination of this requirement, optical fire detection technology has changed significantly and new optical detector designs (e.g., using triple infrared sensors) are on the market. In light of the changes occurring in the field of optical flame detection and the Navy's experience with false alarms with installed detection systems, there was a need to assess optical fire detector performance in military aircraft hangar applications. The objective of this test program was to evaluate the level of performance of commercially available optical fire detection (OFD) technologies for growing JP-5 and JF-8 spill fires, representative of expected incidents in Navy hangars. The same detectors were also evaluated for their resistance to false alarm sources. The results of these experimental evaluations were combined with a fire threat analysis to develop OFD performance criteria.