Suppression Of Rack-storage Fires By Water

A s e r i e s of large-scale f i r e suppression t e s t s was conducted for two d i f f e re n t commodities stored in s t e e l racks of d i f f e r e n t heights, and were analyzed using a global heat balance model.In these t e s t s , water was applied uniformly on top of the storage array a t selected f i r e s i z e s t o determine the f i r e s u p p r e s s i b i l i t y f o r a commodity a t a given storage height.A f i r e suppression parameter was used t o correlate the f i r e suppression r e s u l t s of these t e s t s .The f i r e suppression parameter is a function of fuel d e n s i t y , f u e l s p e c i f i c heat, ignition temperature, heat of combustion, burning r a t e , heat of pyrolysis, and water application r a t e .The data indicate t h a t the combustible packaging and overall storage arrangement have s i g n i f i c a n t impact on the magnitude of the c r i t i c a l water density f o r f i r e suppression.