Industrial Fire Protection

Project summary

Much resources are devoted to active fire protection in the oil & gas industry. Two previous employees at HVL have previously taken their PhDs on large scale jet fires and the application of water for cooling fire exposed objects. There is, however, still limited knowledge about water spray efficiency when applied to hot objects. 

The first study involves assessing the water droplet cooling efficiency when applied to metal objects from 80°C to 400°C, i.e. covering all the boiling regimes of water on heated metal surfaces.

The second study involves assessing the passive fire protection (PFP) potential of industrial thermal insulation used to thermally insulate process equipment, such as distillation columns.

To be able to work on these goals, challenges within fire dynamics, physics, high temperature inorganic chemistry, high temperature heat transfer, high temperature measurement technologies have to be solved using in-depth science as well as creativity.

Method

For both the study on water droplet cooling efficiency and PFP properties of industrial thermal insulation, low cost innovative test concepts had to be developed. We refer to the listed publication for the test concepts.