• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.56-62
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• 2019

A sprinkler is a fire extinguishing equipment installed in a protected area where a detector or head detects a fire and automatically puts out the fire. However, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport's "Regulations on Building Evacuation and Fire Protection Standards, etc." stipulate that fire compartment area should be reduced to three times by installing sprinkler facilities in the case of factories and warehouses. In this study, fire hazard was analyzed for a real PCB factory which mitigated the fire protection zone by sprinkler installation, and the head opening characteristics of sprinkler facilities through computer simulation, installation standards of sprinkler facilities, thermal performance, operating range, and the amount of water sprayed to identify the problems of operation of sprinkler facilities in case of fire, and to suggest the grounds such as required sprinkling flow rate for system improvement.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.16-21
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• 2017

The sprinkler system is a basic fire extinguishing system that uses water as an extinguishing agent. In order to evaluate the fire extinguishing performance of the sprinkler system, information such as the discharge angle, discharge speed, discharge pressure, flow rate, and water droplet size of the installed head are required. However, there is a lack of research on droplets size compared to other requirements. In this study, to evaluate the extinguishing characteristics of sprinkler system, the droplet size distribution was measured for various types of sprinkler heads actually used. The size of the droplet was measured using laser diffraction method. The 50% cumulative volume distribution ($D_{v50}$) according to discharge coefficient(K factor) was $540{\mu}m{\sim}695{\mu}m$ for K50, $542{\mu}m{\sim}1,192{\mu}m$ for K80, $980{\mu}m{\sim}1,223{\mu}m$ for K115 and $1,188{\mu}m{\sim}1,234{\mu}m$ for K202. Based on the measured results, the vaeiance of the droplet particle distribution and the distribution ($D_{v50}$) according to discharge coefficient(K factor) was $540{\mu}m{\sim}695{\mu}m$ for K50, $542{\mu}m{\sim}1,192{\mu}m$ for K80, $980{\mu}m{\sim}1,223{\mu}m$ for K115 and $1,188{\mu}m{\sim}1,234{\mu}m$ for K202. Based on the measured results, the vaeiance of the droplet particle distribution and the Rosin-Rammler index value are presented. As a result of the fire simulation with FDS, it was confirmed that the performance difference occurs according to the water droplet size distribution even when the same amount of water is used. Therefore, the extinguishing performance of the sprinkler system should be evaluated considering the droplet size distribution according to the sprinkler head type.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.35-41
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• 2004

The water spray characteristics of the sprinkler heads is a very important factor affecting the fire suppression performance, and it is largely dependent on the shape of the head nozzle. This study investigated shape factors and spray distribution performances for the sprinkler heads of four domestic companies with big market shares. The experimental results revealed that all flow constants exceeded the required regulation limits, however showed big differences between head types although they have the same design limit. They were however relatively consistent regardless of the pressure increases. The spray distribution of some head samples showed severe directional eccentricity, which suggests more study for the improvement.