Metal hydride fires and fire suppression agents

Most metal hydrides are pyrophoric and water-reactive. Summaries of metal hydride fire incidents are presented to illustrate ignition scenarios, threats to personnel and equipment, and fire suppression experiences. Met-L-X™, a sodium chloride-based, certified, Class D fire suppression agent, has successfully extinguished some metal hydride fires by coating the hydride and excluding air access. However, the still hot hydride is prone to re-ignition upon surface disturbance, such as may be necessary during disposal. Previously reported testing of various Class D agents and moist sand for sodium hydride fires is reviewed here along with certification and ad hoc testing of existing Class D agents and recent testing of a new candidate Class D agent. Hydride explosibility testing is also briefly summarized. Additional fire and explosibility tests, as well as suppression agent reactivity evaluations, are recommended.     

蒸汽抑制熄灭酒精池火有效性的模拟实验研究

蒸汽灭火系统在酒类作业场所有着广阔的应用前景.通过全淹没和局部保护实验对蒸汽抑制熄灭酒精池火的有效性进行了研究.实验结果表明,全淹方式难以有效控火,但是布局合理的局部保护方式能够有效熄灭酒精池火.蒸汽灭火过程中稀释O2浓度的灭火机理起到的作用较小,蒸汽的火焰拉伸效果是其主导灭火机理.     

Paleoecological Assessment of Watershed History in PRIMENet Watersheds at Acadia National Park, USA

Paleoecological reconstructions of forest stand histories for two upland watersheds at Acadia National Park in Maine were completed to support related watershed chemistry studies. The project hypothesis was that forest type and fire history influence long-term cycling and storage of atmospheric mercury and nitrogen within watersheds. The reconstructions document differences in major vegetation composition and disturbance between the burned and unburned watersheds during the past several centuries. Pollen and charcoal stratigraphies from organic sediment accumulations in forested wet depressions indicate that the present experimental design of contrasting disturbance and forest histories has persisted during recent centuries. The unburned watershed has been dominated by spruce (Picea rubens) and fir (Abies balsamea) for 500 years or more and has not recently burned or been substantially cleared. The burned watershed is dominated by a heterogeneous forest of patchy hardwood, mixed wood, and softwood stands. A large portion of this watershed burned severely in 1947 and probably more than once in the 1800s, and has supported heterogeneous successional forests for 200 years or longer. Overall, these results support the underlying premise that the experimental design of this watershed research can be used to infer landscape controls on biogeochemical processes.     

基于计算机仿真的火灾时人员安全疏散可靠度分析

火灾中的人员疏散是个复杂的过程,受到诸多因素的共同影响,传统的人员疏散可靠度分析常常忽略这些因素之间的相互作用。为更准确地计算出火灾中人员疏散的可靠度,本文以某地铁车站为例,借助人员疏散仿真软件buildingEXODUS与火灾模拟程序FDS,分别得到人员所需安全疏散时间(RSET)和可利用安全疏散时间(ASET)。在此基础上,构造人员安全疏散极限状态方程,利用一次二阶矩理论求得安全疏散可靠概率。由于能够较好地反映疏散过程中各影响因素之间的相互作用,因此,采用本文提出的可靠度分析方法能够得到更合理的结果。     

Study on accidental fire at a large-scale floating-roof gasoline storage tank

For an accident involving a large-scale internal floating-roof tank with 28.4 m diameter and filled with 4600 m³ gasoline, the actual behavior of the gasoline fire and the fire-fighting strategies that were applied to it were analyzed in terms of the heat release rate, burning rate, and regression rate. During the accident, the initial fire suppression strategy failed and the gasoline was moved to an external tank. A total of 2800 m³ gasoline was burned for 17 h with a resulting heat release rate of 1475 MW. The long duration of the fire burning was attributed to the burning surface of the gasoline, which was not covered with foam at the beginning of the fire using the active foam fire-extinguishing system due to damage to one of the foam chambers. The average regression rate of the gasoline was 0.16 m/h after 8 h of burning and 0.35 m/h when the fire was completely suppressed.     

Improvement in the prediction of gasoline pool fire behaviour: CFD modelling and validation

The development and implementation of mathematical models through Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) techniques has been acknowledged as a promising tool for the prediction of hydrocarbon pool fires behaviours. In this sense, different approaches, with different assumptions and simplifications, and accounting for different phenomena, have been developed in the literature. However, the deviations in the predictions of the experimentally determined parameters, such as temperatures profiles, flame heights and radiative heat flux, by the implemented models are still high. Therefore, the implementation of these models to predict combustion phenomena and flame behaviours for various scenarios is limited. In this work, the software C3D is used to model gasoline pool fires of different diameters, and under different wind conditions, in order to improve the quality of the predictions of the flame behaviour. The modelled cases correspond to the experimental studies reported in literature. The results from the implemented model show an improved predictive quality when compared with other modelling works reported on literature for the same experimental cases. The deviations in the time averaged temperature, flame height, surface emissive power and radiative heat flux, has been calculated to be 5.0%, 0.05%, 6.32% and 3.82%, respectively.     

Dynamic Inherently Safer Modifications: Metric development and its validation for fire and explosion prevention

Of the numerous inherent safety assessment tools, a dynamic metric capable of investigating and incorporating the temporal risk evolution when conducting Inherently Safer Modifications (ISMs) is yet to be established. To this end, this work developed a Dynamic Inherent Safety Metric (DISM) and validated its functionality and viability through a case study. Firstly, the Information-Flow-based Accident-causing Model (IFAM) was adapted to construct the topology of Bayesian Networks (BN). Then, Bayesian deductive reasoning was executed to do crucial risk identification by ranking posterior probabilities. Finally, risk-based ISMs were performed to address the relatively contributing risk factors. The case study results show that the fire and explosion risk decreased by approximately a third after implementing ISMs, thus demonstrating that the modified processing scenario could be inherently safer than the original processing scenario. The newly developed inherent safety metric (i.e., DISM) can assist in temporal risk identification and assessment, and it is expected to function as a novel assessment tool for measuring and comparing the inherent safeness before and after implementing ISMs with simultaneous considerations on the time-varying risk factors.     

A focus group study of factors that promote and constrain the use of satellite-derived fire products by resource managers in southern Africa

Semi-structured focus group interviews were employed to examine factors that affect the likelihood that resource managers in southern Africa will use information on vegetation fires provided by two satellite-derived products: an active fire product and a burned area product. The two products are updated regularly and aim to deliver the state-of-the-art in the global monitoring of fires from satellite remote-sensing. Both products are derived from data transmitted by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensors carried onboard NASA's Aqua and Terra satellites. The active fire product can be accessed for free via the internet and on media by users working anywhere in the world; the burned area product will be accessible in a similar manner in 2006. The MODIS fire products provide systematic, near-global coverage and are freely available; as such, they give resource managers new opportunities to obtain or supplement information they need to manage vegetation fires effectively. However, the availability of these products does not mean that resource managers will use them, and many other factors are involved. To understand factors that affect whether southern African resource managers will use the two products, two focus groups were held with members of the Southern African Fire Network (SAFNet) in Malawi, Africa, August 2004. Analysis of the group discussions reveals a number of factors that influence whether they will use the products. The qualitative, in depth nature of the group discussions revealed 12 main factors that influence product use; not least the low international internet bandwidths for African countries outside of South Africa. Analysis of the group discussions also suggests how the uptake of MODIS fire products by resource managers in southern Africa might be enhanced by affecting specific changes to how MODIS products are packaged and delivered.     

Predicting streamflow response to fire-induced landcover change: implications of parameter uncertainty in the MIKE SHE model

Fire is a primary agent of landcover transformation in California semi-arid shrubland watersheds, however few studies have examined the impacts of fire and post-fire succession on streamflow dynamics in these basins. While it may seem intuitive that larger fires will have a greater impact on streamflow response than smaller fires in these watersheds, the nature of these relationships has not been determined. The effects of fire size on seasonal and annual streamflow responses were investigated for a medium-sized basin in central California using a modified version of the MIKE SHE model which had been previously calibrated and tested for this watershed using the Generalized Likelihood Uncertainty Estimation methodology. Model simulations were made for two contrasting periods, wet and dry, in order to assess whether fire size effects varied with weather regime. Results indicated that seasonal and annual streamflow response increased nearly linearly with fire size in a given year under both regimes. Annual flow response was generally higher in wetter years for both weather regimes, however a clear trend was confounded by the effect of stand age. These results expand our understanding of the effects of fire size on hydrologic response in chaparral watersheds, but it is important to note that the majority of model predictions were largely indistinguishable from the predictive uncertainty associated with the calibrated model - a key finding that highlights the importance of analyzing hydrologic predictions for altered landcover conditions in the context of model uncertainty. Future work is needed to examine how alternative decisions (e.g., different likelihood measures) may influence GLUE-based MIKE SHE streamflow predictions following different size fires, and how the effect of fire size on streamflow varies with other factors such as fire location.     

石油化工产品储运系统安全排放技术措施

针对石油化工产品储运系统在正常情况和事故情况下,因排放可燃液体、可燃气体或蒸气可能带来的火灾爆炸危险,阐述了在工艺上和设计上安全排放应采取的防火防爆安全技术措施.