Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

A coaxial turbulent spray burner was used to determine the suppression characteristics of twelve different fire fighting agents in elevated temperature hydraulic fluid and jet fuel (JP-8) spray flames. The effectiveness of the gaseous agents, being considered as alternatives to halon 130 1, was compared based upon the mass required for suppression and the equivalent storage volume, normalized by the amount of halon 1301 required to suppress the flame. The elevated temperature results were compared to measurements previously obtained with the incoming air and JP-8 at ambient temperature. No statistically significant difference in relative agent performance was found between the heated hydraulic flame and the previous JP-8 experiments. There was a trend toward higher agent concentrations when the fuel was JP-8 and the temperature of the incoming reactants was 150 "C. In all three experiments, the halon 1301 required the least mass to extinguish the flame, followed by nitrogen. The rest of the alternative fluorinated agents considered required between 1.2 and 2.4 times more mass to suppress the various flames.