Production of fire extinguishing mixture by solid propellant propulsion

The behavior of fire suppression by water mist spray has been studied by using the experimental setup which employs the double-based solid propellant gas generator for water mist production. The burning products of solid fuel form a supersonic flow injected through the nozzle into the diffuser chamber having input for the water component ejected from the storage. High values of temperature and pressure at stagnation point impart the substantial kinetic energy to the flow, which provides the atomization of water droplets into mist spray. Since the water evaporation occurs already in the diffuser chamber due to the high temperature of input gas flow, the droplet size is gradually decreases to the lower limit value that could ever exist. The presence of vapor phase enlarges the volume of fire extinguishing jet allowing it to operate as a flooding agent (along with the effect of heat consumption due to water evaporation) at the very beginning of fire suppression process, much before the water droplets evaporation by the flame itself. Proposed technique of the water mist production has showed noticeable fire suppression capability through the series of testing application to the gasoline and wood model fire sources. (c) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.