Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

A series of fire tests was conducted to investigate the requirements for local application water mist systems to provide consistent fire suppression performance for different sizes of open pool fires. These tests were conducted with water mist nozzles arranged above square or rectangular diesel pools. The tests showed that a water mist system gives consistent fire suppression performance for pool fires of different sizes and aspect ratios if the system meets the following requirements: 1) constant nozzle operating conditions; 2) complete pool coverage by water mist sprays, 3) constant inclination angles for individual nozzles, 4) constant ratio of total number of nozzles versus the pool area; 5) constant ratio of overall spray coverage area versus pool area, and 6) constant nozzle elevation in the flaming region above the pool. The tests also showed that fire suppression performance could be improved by lowering the nozzle elevation and increasing the inclination angles of the nozzles along the pool perimeter under the experimental conditions used in this investigation.