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PUBLICATIONS

Equivalency of the Rankings of Inhibitor Effectiveness for Combustion of Hydrocarbon Fuels

Published

Author(s)

Valeri I. Babushok, Wing Tsang, William L. Grosshandler

Abstract

The search for alternatives to halon 1301 has involved numerous flame studies, with the effectiveness of different agents compared using a range of gaseous and liquid fuels. Methane is the most convenient fuel for investigating the inhibition and extinction of laminar flames through chemical kinetics modeling because its combustion mechanism does not involve as many multi-carbon species. The concern with methane, or any one hydrocarbon, is that a given fuel may produce inhibitor rankings that are not representative of hydrocarbons in general. Trees et al. [1] compared the performance of thirteen agents (fluorocarbons, nitrogen, and CF3Br) in extinguishing counter-flowing and co-flowing laminar diffusion flames of pure hydrocarbons, jet fuels, and hydraulic fluids. The relative ranking of the agents using all the fuels was practically the same, within the uncertainty of the experiments. In this paper we wish to examine the theoretical basis for generalizing the relative ranking of chemically active agents across different fuels, focusing on C1 to C4 alkanes, by carrying out a sensitivity analysis on the detailed kinetics of combustion. The results, although not complete, give a semi-quantitative picture of the transferability of suppressant effectiveness data for various hydrocarbon fuels.
Proceedings Title
Eastern States Section: The Combustion Institute, Fall Technical Meeting
Conference Dates
October 1, 1999
Conference Location
Undefined
Conference Title
Combustion Institute Technical Meeting Eastern States Section
Pub Type
Conferences

Keywords

fire suppression, flame chemistry, halon 1301

Citation

Babushok, V. , Tsang, W. and Grosshandler, W. (2008), Equivalency of the Rankings of Inhibitor Effectiveness for Combustion of Hydrocarbon Fuels, Eastern States Section: The Combustion Institute, Fall Technical Meeting, Undefined (Accessed September 7, 2024)

Issues

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Created October 16, 2008