Parametrical study of the dispersion of an alternative fire suppression agent through a real-size extinguisher system nozzle under realistic aircraft cargo cabin conditions

Nearly all active fire extinguishing systems consist of injecting an agent into the space set on fire. For aircraft cargo cabins, the agent widely used up to date is Halon 1301. The FAA provides a level of safety for this fire suppression agent that needs to be used in a volumetric concentration of 6% and needs to be acting for a duration of 0.5 s. On the other hand, Halon 1301 is known to contribute to the retrenchment of Earth's atmospheric ozone layer, therefore it is going to be prohibited in the incoming years. The FAA has defined an equivalent level of safety in terms of the performance of the alternative agents. In this research, two different alternative fire suppression agents and two nozzles were tested at two vessel back-pressure conditions using a new design in purpose facility and an injection system able to control the injection pressure and the injection duration (the agent injected mass) in order to satisfy the FAA performance conditions. The discharge volume is a rectangular constant volume constant pressure vessel of approximately 0.85 m(3) and 1.5 m of length that is provided with two transparent windows of 0.75 m x 1.5 m to ensure an optical access to study the whole agent injection and it mixing process. Liquid phase distribution of the agent injected inside the vessel is measured by means of Diffuse Back-Light Illumination (DBI) technique. Vapor phase distribution, when present, is measured through the single-pass Schlieren technique. Results show a poor performance in terms of spatial distribution (narrow jet with little atomization) of the two alternative agents injected through the nozzle actually used in the aircraft cargo cabin fire suppression systems. However, simply replacing the nozzle and using one with a swirler showed excellent performance in terms of spray penetration and spreading angle. This results ratify that the nozzles of the fire extinguisher system currently used in the aircraft cargo cabin does not work for the alternative agents tested. (C) 2020 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.