• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.15-26
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• 2009

This research has so far found out problems including the second damage of extinguishant and the short time of emission when using the existing dry chemical extinguisher and gas type extinguisher, and impossibility of constant extinguishing due to the inability of recharge at the field. To solve such problems, a mobile water mist system was developed and used. However, it is judged that more improved mobile water mist system is necessary because the force of the fire changed diversely and remote villages in mountains or islands where the force of fire extinguishing is short or delayed, require high capacity of fire extinguishing. Therefore a new equipment was developed and tested focusing on the improvement of extinguishing capacity and the performance of extinguishing was found out to be improved, compared to the existing mobile water mist system. It also showed a superior extinguishing capacity to dry chemical extinguisher or gas type extinguisher. Afterward an additional research is required of simplification of equipment, price cutting and the development of additive to enable high performance even with just small extinguishant.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.51-55
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• 2019

To prevent ozone depletion caused by CFCs, the replacement of Halon with clean agents has been developed in the fire protection field along with refrigerants, detergents, and foaming agents. The alternatives for Halon 1211 have been developed in the portable fire extinguisher area and HCFC-123 is used widely as a clean fire extinguishing agent. The type of expellant gas is important because their own vapor pressure is low. In this study, HCFC-123, HCFC-124, HFC-125, and Novec-1230 were selected as fire extinguishing agents and CO₂, which is expected to improve the fire extinguishing ability, was chosen as the expellant gas. For each agent, experiments changing the agent and CO₂ amount were carried out and HCFC-123 showed a good result, as expected. The extinguisher, HCFC-123 of 1.5 kg, showed the same ability to suppress a class A and B fire as the extinguisher, HCFC-123 of 2.5 kg, which is currently sold on the market. According to this result, the expellant gas has a subsidiary fire extinguish effect. This can reduce the amount of HCFC fire extinguishing agent, which is categorized in the phase-out alternatives, and is a more eco-friendly and economical fire extinguisher than the previous one. This study can also help solve the problems of CO₂ fire extinguishers for class B and C fires, and can be used to extinguish electric and electron facilities fire, which contains large amounts of class A fire combustibles.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.147-155
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• 2020

This paper presents a study on the development of a fire extinguishing agent and extinguishing system for an energy storage system (ESS) fire. The fire extinguishing agent designed to extinguish an ESS fire is a highly permeable fire extinguisher that reduces the surface tension and viscosity while bringing about cooling action. This is the main extinguishing effect of this type of wetting agent, which displays the characteristics of fire extinguishing agents used for penetrating the battery cells inside the ESS module. For the fire extinguishing system, a local application system was designed to suppress fire on a rack-by-rack basis. A 360° rotating nozzle was inserted into the rear hall of the ESS module, and general nozzles were installed in the rack to maximize the fire extinguishing effect. The fire extinguishing agent was strongly discharged by virtue of the gas release pressure. Experiments on fire suppression performance with ESS module 1 unit and module 3 units showed that all visible flames were extinguished in 8 s and 9 s, respectively, by the fire extinguishing agent. In addition, based on confirming reignition for 600 s after the fire extinguishing agent was exhausted, it was confirmed that the ESS fire was completely extinguished without reignition in all fire suppression performance experiments.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.111-120
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• 2016

This study is intended to provide legislative direction for fire products life expectancy. Domestic and international laws relating to fire products life expectancy have been reviewed, and the results of a Fire Safety Manager Consciousness (FSMC) survey were analyzed. The FSMC survey has been designed in order to assist with the establishment of appropriate fire safety policy. A questionnaire survey was conducted with 660 fire safety administrators from 17 municipal and provincial districts, with the intention of gaining expertise on the extension of life-span for 32 fire products. The survey also asked for candidates opinions on future policy direction. Based on the survey results and the review of policies within other nations, we have devised a set of policy issues with the intention of extending the life-span of fire-safety items. The survey result revealed that 79.3% of Fire Safety Managers (FSMs) concurred with the establishment of legislation regarding the maintenance and correct care of fire-safety products. Overall, over 30% of FSMs were in favor of regulations regarding Ddry chemical fire extinguishers (77.3%), fire detectors (44.6%), fire hoses (44.4%), gaseous agent fire extinguisher (40.6%), automatic descending life lines (36.2%), exit lights (35.9%), air respirators (35.9%), extinguishing systems for residential cooking facilities (33.9%), automatic spray-type extinguishing units (33.9%), emergency lights (31.2%), and gas leakage detectors (30.7%). Especially, among these, dry chemical fire extinguishers (60.0%), detectors (20.0%), and fire hose (18.8%) were identified as the fire products primarily in need of maintenance legislation. The general consensus is that fire products older than 10 years need to be replaced. Based on the survey results, there was general agreement that fire product life expectancy is in need of legislation. This study recommends the introduction of fire product life expectancy legislation in phases.