FireDOC Search

Author
Leonard, J. T. | Fulper, C. R. | Darwin, R. | Back, G. G. | Burns, R. E. | Ouelette, R.
Title
Fire Hazards of Mixed Fuels on the Flight Deck.
Coporate
Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, DC Hughes Associates, Inc., Columbia, MD
Report
NRL/MR-6180-6975, April 28, 1992, 29 p.
Keywords
fire hazards | fuel fires | fire extinguishment | flame spread | JP-8 jet fuels | JP-5 jet fuels | jet fuels | flash point
Identifiers
flight deck fires
Abstract
An assessment was made of the increased fire hazard resulting from the spill of mixed JP-8/JP-5 fuels on a heated flight deck. The effect of the pure fuels and of various mixtures thereof on ease of ignition, flame spread and difficulty of extinguishment were examined. The results indicated that it was not until the temperature of the fuel and heated deck was more than 11 deg C (20 deg F) above the flash point of the fuel that any significant difference in flame spread occurred. Above this temperature, the flame spread increased rapidly, eventually reaching 150 cm/s (60 in/s). The fire extinguishment tests showed clear, quantifiable differences in the ability to extinguish fire involving minimum flash point JP-5 vs. Jet A (JP-8) fuels. The neat JP-5 fuel fires could always be extingushed with one hand line in less than 60 seconds whereas the 100% Jet A (JP-8) fires becomes progressively more difficult to extinguish with increasing fuel temperature. Above 71 deg C (160 deg F), the Jet A (JP-8) fires could not be extinguished in two minutes with two hand lines.