Sauna is a common fixture in many facilities; a specific fire-protection system is typically designed and installed for this application, as short circuits or direct contact with incandescent materials may result in a fire. Water mist has been recently considered as a promising option for this purpose; so, assessing its control and suppression capability in a sauna configuration has become of paramount importance for designers and engineers. To this end, an unprecedented real-scale test rig was built and instrumented with thermocouples and a hot-plate thermometer towards the evaluation of water-mist performance against various fire scenarios and, ultimately, to provide guidelines to designers. Timber benches were employed as target materials, while the fire was initiated in a wood crib. Design parameters, such as initial room temperature, location of the ignition source, nozzle-to-wall distance, and air gap between benches and wall, were varied, also including natural ventilation in a dedicated experiment. The system proved successful in controlling and containing the fire: bench damage ratio—selected as a quantitative parameter to assess water-mist performance—was consistently lower than 5%. However, extinction was not always achieved, especially under the most challenging configuration in terms of ventilation, initial room temperature, and nozzle-to-wall distance.

Full-scale experiments of water-mist systems for control and suppression of sauna fires / Santangelo, Paolo Emilio; Tarozzi, Luca; Tartarini, Paolo. - In: FIRE. - ISSN 2571-6255. - 5:6(2022), pp. 1-17. [10.3390/fire5060214]

Full-scale experiments of water-mist systems for control and suppression of sauna fires

Santangelo, Paolo Emilio;Tarozzi, Luca;Tartarini, Paolo
2022

Abstract

Sauna is a common fixture in many facilities; a specific fire-protection system is typically designed and installed for this application, as short circuits or direct contact with incandescent materials may result in a fire. Water mist has been recently considered as a promising option for this purpose; so, assessing its control and suppression capability in a sauna configuration has become of paramount importance for designers and engineers. To this end, an unprecedented real-scale test rig was built and instrumented with thermocouples and a hot-plate thermometer towards the evaluation of water-mist performance against various fire scenarios and, ultimately, to provide guidelines to designers. Timber benches were employed as target materials, while the fire was initiated in a wood crib. Design parameters, such as initial room temperature, location of the ignition source, nozzle-to-wall distance, and air gap between benches and wall, were varied, also including natural ventilation in a dedicated experiment. The system proved successful in controlling and containing the fire: bench damage ratio—selected as a quantitative parameter to assess water-mist performance—was consistently lower than 5%. However, extinction was not always achieved, especially under the most challenging configuration in terms of ventilation, initial room temperature, and nozzle-to-wall distance.
2022
10-dic-2022
5
6
1
17
Full-scale experiments of water-mist systems for control and suppression of sauna fires / Santangelo, Paolo Emilio; Tarozzi, Luca; Tartarini, Paolo. - In: FIRE. - ISSN 2571-6255. - 5:6(2022), pp. 1-17. [10.3390/fire5060214]
Santangelo, Paolo Emilio; Tarozzi, Luca; Tartarini, Paolo
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11380/1292724
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