Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

A methodology is developed to predict the flammability of water-based hydraulic fluids. The methodology is based on the heat release rate of an atomized spray and the calculated adiabatic flame temperature of the fluid for cases where the fire point (ASTM D-92) cannot be measured, because of the presence of water. NASA equilibrium code yields the adiabatic flame temperature from the knowledge of elemental composition of the fluid as well as its gross heat of complete combustion (oxygen bomb calorimetry). A criterion has been developed to identify less flammable water-based hydraulic fluids. It is that for a fluid showing no fire point, have a chemical heat release rate less than or equal to 130 kW in FM Global’s standardized spray fire test and its adiabatic stoichiometric flame temperature is less than or equal to 2100 K. For fluids having fire points one would use the traditional spray flammability parameter (SFP) FM Approval Standard2.