Compartment Fire Behavior at the Stages of Detection, Containment and Suppression Using Water Mist

Abstract

This paper presents experimental research findings regarding the characteristics of fire safety equipment activation before and after a water-based fire suppression system is triggered. A group of typical indoor combustible materials (wood, linoleum, cardboard, paper) were used to construct Class A model fires in the experiments. The three most frequent fire causes were reproduced: the careless handling of fire (open flame), the unsafe operation of heating equipment and electrical short circuits. To identify the fire behavior, an automated system including fire (heat, smoke, flame) detectors, contact and non-contact temperature measurement instruments, a gas analysis system and video recording equipment was employed. Following the experiments, the most efficient (in terms of detection speed and reliability) combinations of technical equipment that are necessary and sufficient to identify all the combustion stages of substances and materials were determined. The efficient consumption of a fire-extinguishing agent was found to be possible when fire development stages were controlled. Guidelines on creating automated fire prevention systems in buildings were provided. These have the potential to significantly speed up compartment fire suppression.