• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.161-169
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• 2015

A fire sprinkler system is very important to extinguish fire in the building. The sprinkler system initiates sprinkler discharge if the detection system identifies a developing fire and opens the pre-action valve. However, pre-action fire sprinkler systems mainly installed in the underground parking lot at the apartment complex do not properly operate at fire if the connection type of fire sprinkler systems does not properly installed and operated. This study identified the relationship between fire dispersion & damage and the connection type of water supply in the sprinkler system from many fire cases at the apartment complex in South Korea. In addition, this study also identified the water supply differences and characteristics between South Korea and foreign countries. The main purpose of this study is also to improve the water connection types in the sprinkler system that can reduce the potential failures of pre-action valve operation through electrical signal system. The study also suggests the improvement plan for water connection types in pre-action fire sprinkler system that can minimize potential failure of pre-action fire sprinkler system. The suggestions for revising the fire safe standard in South Korea includes letting the water supply pipe of sprinkler system water inlet connect to the second side of pre-action valve and the water flow device that can minimize potential failure of sprinkler system.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.22 no.1 s.79
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• pp.7-12
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• 2007

There are two kinds of design process for sprinkler system. one is pipe schedule system and the other is hydraulically designed system. We have inefficient results when we design by hydraulically designed system because the design process for sprinkler system is restricted by domestic fire code. Therefore, it is essential to do an introduction of hydraulically designed system which is based on engineering for enhancing reliability and efficiency of sprinkler system. This study presents points at issue by comparing and studying design standards of sprinkler system from Korea, Japan and NFPA, and presents improvement plans of national fire safety code of sprinkler system by processing, comparing and analyzing designs according to piping schedule and hydraulically designed system about domestic objects. Installation standards of sprinkler system have to be applied not by object buildings but by hazard classification. It is hard to design an efficient sprinkler system for fire control when water supply requirement of sprinkler systems allocated according to a size of a building because the same purpose but other buildings may request more water requirement or less. We should sublate the pipe schedule system from national fire safety code and need to introduce the hydraulically designed system. The pipe schedule system presents easy access because it is based on the forecasted engineering calculations but it is applied to only small buildings like NFPA due to its low reliability.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.20 no.2 s.62
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• pp.8-13
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• 2006

Numerical simulations were carried out for a fire in a clean room to confirm needs of a smoke control system and a sprinkler system, and to investigate a possible smoke spread-out. For a 1 MW methanol fire in a space of $39m{\times}13m$ floor and 4 m high, smoke spread-out was scrutinized for failure of the sprinkler system and/or the smoke control system. It was shown that the smoke control system removes smoke safely without the sprinkler system and that the sprinkler system is required to suppress smoke generation and spread of the fire, and to remove the smoke quickly. It was also confirmed that highly reliable sprinkler heads and automatic fire detection system are required for the sprinkler and smoke control systems.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.44-50
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• 2019

In rack-type warehouses, it is difficult to extinguish fires effectively using sprinkler systems because high fire load commodities are stacked vertically and densely. In this study, an actual size rack structure was constructed and the effectiveness of the fire extinguished by the sprinkler system was confirmed through fire tests according to the type and arrangement of the sprinkler head in the rack structure. Through this study, to effectively suppress fires in rack-type warehouses, it is necessary to use sprinkler heads with a volume of more than 115 LPM and sprinkler heads need to be installed at the diagonal corner positions of the commodities of each rack.

• Proceedings of the Korea Institute of Fire Science and Engineering Conference
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• 1997.11a
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• pp.610-616
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• 1997

One of the notable changes in Korean Industry in 1990's was globalization. Many of Korea plants have been built In the foreign countries and many of foreign plants have been build in Korea. And it is believed that many foreign insurance companies will begin their business in Korea soon, as Korea will open their insurance market to them. While sprinkler system plays very important role in total fire protection system, Korean sprinkler system design has not been studied in depth. Thus, it is not easy to convince the performance of Korean sprinkler system and compare it to NFPA 13, Standard for the Installation of Sprinkler System. Design guideline from both system will be listed and compared in detail. Fire water demand from both system will be reviewed to evaluate its adequacy. Water spray density and actuation time will be estimated, too.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.32-37
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• 2013

This paper suggested to revise unreasonable national fire safety codes of sprinkler system. Also proposed to modify the definition of "the gridded sprinkler system" and to add "the feed main" in terms of the definition of the pipes. In order to operate the regulations of discharge pressure of the sprinkler head efficiently, this paper checked the minimum criteria of pressure and flow for the pipe schedule sprinkler system of NFPA 13 and suggested to establish the similar minimum demand criteria. It proposed to be amended properly the pressure calculation formular in the pressure tank system and to use the correct K value due to change in pressure unit and to use the [bar] as a unit of pressure for the sake of using the existing K-factor etc.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.4
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• pp.1571-1584
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• 2023

In this study, a numerical analysis was performed as part of an international joint research project to reproduce a real cable tray fire that occurred in the heater bay area of the turbine building of a nuclear power plant. A sensitivity analysis was performed on various input parameters to derive results consistent with the sprinkler activation time obtained from the fire event analysis. For all sensitive parameters, the normalized sprinkler activation time correlated well with the power function of the normalized sprinkler height. A correlation equation was developed to identify the sprinkler activation time at any location when determining the slope or fire growth rate under the conditions assuming a linear or t-squared heat release rate (HRR) time curve. Various cable fire growth assumptions were used to determine which assumption was better to provide the prediction coincident with the information given from the fire event analysis in terms of the sprinkler activation time and total energy generated from cables damaged by fire. In the comprehensive analysis of all the sensitive parameters, the standard deviation of the input parameters increased as the sprinkler height decreased. Within the range of the sensitivity parameter values given in this study, when considering all sprinkler heights, the standard deviation of the cable model change was the largest and that of the overhang position change was the smallest.

• Journal of ILASS-Korea
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.97-104
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• 2023

A sprinkler is a fire suppression system that extinguishes combustible materials in the early stages of a fire, creating a spray. However, spray formation method of the sprinkler can result in an uneven distribution of water spray on the surface of combustible materials. It is necessary to ensure a consistent water flux density regardless of the spray direction and angle. In this study, the water flux distribution was analyzed for the various types of sprinkler head: circular, flush, pendent, and upright types. All sprinkler heads have a K-factor of 80 LPM/(0.1MPa)^0.5. In this study, water collection cubes were used to examine the water flux distribution. The upright type sprinkler head showed a low standard deviation in total sprayed area, indicating a high level of uniformity. The upright type head showed the lowest standard deviation in the radial direction, and also showed the lowest standard deviation in the azimuthal direction. Upright sprinkler head has no obstructing structure along the path of droplets after they are generated. For this reason, upright sprinkler head showed the most uniform water flux distribution on the floor.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.39-43
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• 2011

In this research, full-scale fire test was performed on a real house for the evaluation of the performance of waterworks direct-coupled sprinkler system. The fire was set to occur as spontaneous combustion as the cooking oil overheats. The size of house is $56m^2$ and it consists of a living room, a kitchen, and a room. In order to verify the performance of waterworks direct-coupled sprinkler system, it was installed in the kitchen. The result of the test showed that the fire started from the kitchen enlarged up to its ceiling but it was soon exhausted as the sprinkler started to work. The pressure of the waterworks was 0.28 MPa when the sprinkler operated, by which it verified that fire could go out even by waterworks pressure of the general residence.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.32-38
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• 2018

The sprinkler system is a basic fire extinguishing system widely used, but there is a lack of quantitative assessment of its performance. In this study, to evaluate the fire extinguishing performance of the sprinkler head according to the discharge coefficients, experiments were conducted. Experimental sprinkler heads were selected with heads having K50, K80 and K115 water discharge coefficients, and the fire source was assumed to be an indoor fire in Class A Model 1. As experimental results, the time required for the fire chamber to cool down to $200^{\circ}C$ was 26 seconds for the K115 head, 414 seconds for the K80 head, and 481 seconds for the K50 head, so the cooling time of the K115 head was decreased by 94.5% compared to K50 head. In the case of restoring the oxygen concentration to 15%, the K115 head did not decrease below the oxygen concentration of 15%, and the K80 head took 145 seconds and the K50 head took 484 seconds. The lowest oxygen concentration in the fire chamber was 16.1% for the K115 head, 14.33% for the K80 head, and 11.28% for the K50 head, indicating that the K115 head was superior to the K80 and K50 heads by 13.1% and 43.7%, respectively. As the experimental results show, there is big difference in the extinguishing performance depending on the discharge coefficients of the sprinkler head. Therefore, in designing the sprinkler system, the discharge coefficients of the sprinkler head should be selected considering the heat release rate at the installation site and the fire extinguishing characteristics of sprinkler head.