Experimental study demonstrates faster, stable cooling with dry sand compared to porous minerals in magnesium fires, indicating that material density and porosity dictate suppression efficacy.
In this study, the cooling characteristics and thermal stabilities of portable suppression agents used for metal fires were experimentally compared. Magnesium alloy chips (AZ91D) were used as fuel, and four suppression materials-dry sand, silica sand, expanded vermiculite, and expanded perlite-were evaluated under identical volume conditions. Nine K-type thermocouples were installed at the top, middle, and bottom of the fuel bed to measure the temperature distribution, and repeated experiments were conducted using commercial grades of each agent. The results showed that dry sand exhibited the fastest temperature reduction and maintained stable cooling without a significant rebound. Silica sand exhibited a lower initial cooling rate, but a stable overall reduction. In contrast, the expanded vermiculite and expanded perlite exhibited temperature increases after application, with a noticeable rebound in the later stage. These results suggest that the material density and porous structure influence the heat accumulation and cooling characteristics under metal fire conditions. This study provides quantitative comparative data on the cooling characteristics and thermal stabilities of portable suppression agents for metal fires evaluated under the standard test conditions of ISO 7165 and the Korean Technical Standards for Type Approval and Product Inspection of Fire Extinguishers (Annex 7).
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Yang et al. (2026) studied this question.
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