2008 Spring Meeting & 4th Global Congress on Process Safety

(120b) The Victaulic “Vortex” Multiple Agent Fire Extinguishing System

Author



A new fire suppression system utilizing two extinguishing agents, water and nitrogen, discharged in a homogeneous suspension has been developed. This system has demonstrated capabilities of extinguishing fires associated with both NFPA 750 and NFPA 2001 requirements. The system has demonstrated effectiveness in Class A, B and C fires. In utilizing 2 extinguishing agents limitations associated with each individual agent are alleviated, while gaining substantial benefits that a single agent would not provide. The system delivers a homogeneous suspension of water droplets <10µm in a high velocity nitrogen stream thus overcoming the terminal velocity effects associated with fine water droplets. This is done at ultra low pressure, 25 psig nitrogen and < 1 gpm water per emitter.

The presentation will include the product description, an in depth analysis of the atomization method, study of the extinguishing mechanisms and several case studies demonstrating the full capabilities of the system including total flooding and local application fires.