Performance Study of Mobile Fire Extinguishing Equipment using High Pressure Water Mist in Health Care Facilities

Abstract

Personnel inside health care facilities are mostly at a disadvantage during evacuation, therefore in the event of a fire, evacuation would possess certain difficulties and result in serious consequences. Use of conventional fire hydrants for fire extinction could damage equipment because of the amount of water used. To avoid this, the amount of water used was a key consideration during this study besides fire extinction performance. This research used newly developed mobile high pressure equipment and nozzle A with a K value of 3.7, and extinguished three standard wood cribs (7.5 MW), its performance being superior to that of the equipment used by the NRIFD (National Research Institute of Fire and Disaster).Using the equipment at a pressure of 49.3kgf/cm2 and discharge flow rate of 26 LPM, the time needed for extinction was 68s, 76s, and 60s,without any recrudescence within 2 min afterwards. Calculations showed that this system only required 33L of water for extinction, 27% less than the indoor hydrant, but was still effective, and it also showed no leakage of electricity under operation pressure and discharge flow rate. This research is a first to quantifiably analyze and compare the performance between mobile high pressure water mist equipment and indoor hydrants