Full-scale experiments of fire suppression in high-hazard storages: A temperature-based analysis of water-mist systems

Water-mist systems have become quite popular over the last two decades as an innovative technology in fire protection. Moreover, insertion of additives to the flow may be applied to provide additional improvements in terms of suppression effectiveness and temperature control. The present work consists of an experimental approach within a real-scale facility, which has been aimed at challenging water mist against severe fire scenarios. Among them, a high-rise storage has been here explored, being it commonly recognized as strongly hazardous even by technical standards in terms of both nominal fire load and designed physical domain. The system configuration presents high-pressure nozzles at the ceiling; the sole-water flow is compared to water endowed with a commercial additive. The thermal transient within the test chamber has been evaluated during the fire development as the main quantitative parameter; moreover, the lire evolution has been visualized through a post-fire estimation of the damages. Despite the large amount of released smoke and smoldering materials, water mist is shown to be efficient in fire control, if endowed with the chosen additive. On the other hand, the sole-water flow does not appear suitable for such hazardous conditions under the designed nozzle arrangement. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.