Introduction of the ISO 14001 to the disaster recovery – part 5/8.
Tank fire protection development: the main research task is to eliminate the drawbacks. Research covered three key areas:
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elaboration of a strategy improving the success ratio of fire fighting
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determination of new technical parameters for extinguishing
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development of the technology and technical background needed to realize this
Tank fire protection development 🙂
Steps of the tank fire protection research process:
• comparative review of known extinguishing strategies, research in available literature
• identification of the reasons for the low success ratio, selection of the critical factor
• search for selection of and commenting on possible new strategies
• designation of the direction of technical development
Process of technical development:
• research to develop a technology meeting the objectives of the new strategy,
• conception of the invention idea
• development of the technique necessary for implementing the technology
• building of models and experimental means
• experiments and laboratory tests to verify correctness of the concept
• necessary modifications and further development
• preparation of the invention description and the international patent application
• preparation of a large-sized model, a real-size experimental device
• cold foam spread tests and measurements
• real-size fire experiments
• evaluation of the result
• adaptation to industrial use.
The development work brings success.
Replies to the two problem groups, in the sequence of listing the deficiencies:
- the new extinguishing technique is suitable for extinguishing fire of modern large tanks
- its operating parameters (foam intensity, operating time) can be freely chosen without restriction
- the investor is the plant, inspection and maintenance are carried out by the same organization
- the system is very simple, only a robust, closed foam line is mounted on the tank
- no foam generating devices and other parts that may go wrong are included in the system
- the foam pipes require no maintenance, only the permanent pressure of the foam vessel has to be monitored
- no external water supply (fire water network) and external energy supply is required for the operation of the extinguishing equipment, no operating failure is caused by contaminated water
- operation requires no action by any fire brigade
- there is no delay arising from waiting for the fire brigade to arrive
- a small amount of extinguishing agent is used, the burning time is short, and the pollution of the environment is minimal
- the fire does not endanger the people and the technology involved in fire fighting
- this procedure is excellent for putting out rim seal fire as well
- the safety of its operation is not dependent on any critical infrastructure
to be continued…