Hybrid Fire Extinguisher Cylinder

Last week, i met with the inventor of the maintenance free fire extinguisher, at a fire and safety exhibition in Singapore.  So, i got a closer look at the product and got first hand information from the inventor himself.  There are few things i learned:

a) the cylinder consist of 3 layers, a plastic bottle in the inside, a layer of reinforcement yarn in the middle and another plastic bottle on the outside

b) the reinforcement yarn is not rigidly binded, like the CNG Composite cylinder.
It is tightly wound around the inner plastic container.

c) the reinforcement yarn used is Kevlar from Dupont, not ordinary Glass Fibre, talking about Kevlar, maybe you should know this news.

d) 2 pressure gauges are fitted, i suppose to reduce the failure probability

e) the Valve is solid brass, Malaysia Made, i was told, so you see, Malaysia Boleh!

f) the cylinder passed crushing test.  In this test the cylinder is pressed until both walls almost touching, then inflated back to original size, and it shall nor leak

Here is a photo of the inventor (middle) with another 2 of my Singaporean friends.

I suggested to the inventor to name the cylinder as a hybrid fire extinguisher container, as it combines more than one method of fabrication.

How About A Maintenance Free Fire Extinguisher ?

We have been hearing a lot about the Maintenance Free Batteries for Cars.  Are they really maintenance free? What is the definition of maintenance?  Is checking the terminals considered maintenance?

A friend of mine have designed a fire extinguisher which he claimed to be maintenance free.
The product carries a 10 year manufacturer warranty and claimed to be service free for 10 year.
The inventor also claimed it is 100% recyclable and 100% UV protected.
The best thing is, there is no corrosion risk.

I know the inventor personally, so i manage to get some reliable information on the manufacturing process of this fire extinguisher.
I cannot dispose much more information here, as i believe the design of the product is protected by law.
If you would like to know more about this product, you can logon to http://www.britannia-fire.co.uk/extinguisher-range.aspx?id=6

From the look, it is just another fire extinguisher, but after reading the literature, i start to think if this might be the turning point of fire extinguisher era.  Remember the old mini used to have a strong chromed bumper, then comes the Jap who use a moulded piece of polymer, then never before i see those shinning chromes anymore, except only on collection item cars.  I believe, this will be the envy of every fire extinguisher manufacturer in the world, to start getting panic worrying their current designs will be phased out very soon, if not immediately.

However, it is not without reservation in me.  Having some experience in polymer materials, i will predict the internal polymer (if such material is used), will somehow react in a certain way to the liquid in contact with.

I always believe nothing escapes the mother nature law of degradation, including the UV from the sun.  So, i do not buy the idea of 100% UV protected.  Well, UV stabilized sounds better to me.

Coming to the 10 year service free claim, i will agree that the foam liquid will stay intact, but how about the polymer seal used in the control valve.  As i am aware, the valve seat is compressed under tension by a spring to keep the valve closed all the time, until it is depressed to open the valve for discharge.  A rubberized material depressed for a long period of time may need some attention though.

Finally, i am very confident that this new design of Maintenance Free Fire Extinguisher, the Britania WorldFire, will change the fire industry and give a new perception to everyone towards how a fire extinguisher should be.  It will also change the behavior and practice of the servicing and maintenance personnel.  Maybe the Fire Extinguishers Standards of every country will have to be re-written, to make way for this innovation, for those who neglect will find themselves left behind.

Fire Extinguisher For Moving Vehicles

Recently i was involved in a committee that writes a standard specification for fire extinguishers meant for use in moving vehicles, such as cars, buses trucks, trains, boats and ships.

Interestingly, after many years our country has developed, with so many high rise buildings, so many cars on the road, and worse of all, so many casualties of fire involving road accidents, and we are talking about drafting a code of practice for this.  Well, this does not mean we do not have standards to follow before this, it simply means there were not enough specification to take care the conditions found in moving vehicles, such as vibration, sudden impact, extreme heat, corrosion and so forth.  When it comes to sea going vessels, the first thing cross my mind is the corrosive environment, which did not present in our normal conditions, where these extreme was not tested in extinguishers not meant for sea conditions.

To give you an idea how extinguisher (which not designed for corrosive environment) will look like, if it is exposed to winds of sea, photo below was on a ferry i took sometime ago.

This photo is just an example of how a piece of nicely chromed metal can be rusted, which may compromise the strength can cause failure.  I have seen worse ones.

It is commonly seen extinguishers mounted on trucks, especially oil tankers, normally 2 pieces of 9 kg Powder Type, mounted at the back of the prime mover, or, in this case, behind the tanker.

Unfortunately, in this case, they are chained, making it not easily accesible when in need.

I once received a complaint from somebody who claimed that his fire extinguisher leaked, when i took a look, what i saw was astonishing.  The extinguisher, i suspect, was kept in the car rear boot without a good mounting bracket, so it rolled back and forth whenever the car moves or stops, causing a rubbing action which rubbed away the paint and eaten away the metal, until a puncture developed on the body.

Oops, No Photo of this case, i hope you can imagine.

Back to the committee, i hope to see the government will publish a good guide line to be followed and the regulatory bodies put them into good practice to make fire safety more accesible to everyone.

A fire extinguisher installed in a vehicle is not only for it's own use, but also can be used to rescue other vehicle on fire.  It is not always possible for the vehicle on fire to retrieve it's own extinguisher for use, for such cases, other road users' extinguisher can be used, with the help of others.

If you are interested to obtain a copy of this standard, of course, when it is released, yuo can check the availability from Malaysian Standards Online, search for MS1539 Part 7.

If you like to comment on this Draft Standard, you can check the DMS For Public Comment Site

Lizards & Fire Extinguisher

Wonder if Lizards buys fire extinguishers, maybe as stand-by to protect themselves, when attacked by birds or frogs.  Ha...Ha... of course Not, Just Joking.

Yesterday, i delivered a training course to my colleagues on the topic of Fire Extinguisher Selection, Installation & Maintenance.  While going thru the inspection requirements, i recalled, once, when i was removing an extinguisher from the storage location to be inspected, i was surprised by a few lizards, who ran aimlessly out from the extinguisher box.  Probably they were rudely wake from a good nap by me.

On another occasion, i had to abandon the extinguisher and ran away.  Guess what?  There was an ant colony on the head assembly of the extinguisher.  Then, i was doing extinguisher service in an agricultural park, where most of the extinguishers were sited in the forest.

Well, enough for jokes.
In the training, i elaborated on the guidelines of the Latest Malaysian Standards, MS1539 : Part 3 & Part 4.  Part 3 talks about how to calculate the number of extinguishers required for a specific area, considering the size, what materials in it that potentially burns, etc.  The location of the extinguisher in relation to the height from floor, distance from expected user, are also defined.

Part 4, talks about the required Inspection and maintenance of the fire extinguisher.  What surprised most of my colleagues, were, the requirement of the technician who are authorized to service and maintain an extinguisher. Basically, the standards limits the job only to those who are Competent and operating from a Competent Company.

Soap Making

Googled Soap Making leads to many articles describing the process, basically talks about reacting oil with strong alkaline, producing a salt, thru saponification process.

Wonder why i talk about soap making, out of a no where??

Recall my last posting, about cooking oil fire, where i described the challenges of trying to extinguish a burning cooking oil or fat??  

In this posting, i will try to explain the usual, and proven, of course also the most economical and practical, method of stopping a burning oil.  Yes, change the hot burning oil into soap! Yes, that's Saponification.  Let's SAPO the oil fire, sounds interesting, right?

The use of alkaline to turn hot oil into a fatty salt has been known by mankind for ages, maybe since few thousand years ago. Now i understand why my mom used ashes from the firewoods to clean oily utensils after cooking. It is because ashes are alkaline and it reacts with oil, turning it into salt, which can be washed away easily.

Oops, i drifted too far from what i suppose to touch, that is controlling a burning cooking oil fire.

Last saturday, i did a simple training for a friend to a group of textile factory staffs, where i showed the basic skills and knowledges of using a powder portable fire extinguisher.

It went on smoothly and i saw the trainees were more confident after the practical session, where i used a used drum with diesel fuel and water. Petrol was used to ignite initially.

After the training, we adjourned to a nearby coffee shop for lunch and the chef-cum-owner of a food stall joined us for a chit chat.  He shared his personal experience where his cooking appliance caught fire while deep frying some food stuffs.  What he did to control the fire was, to just pour in more oil into the burning oil, the fire is off. Make sense! Definitely Yes. However, this method only works when the heat contained in the burning oil is not excessively great to the extend that the cold oil is able to absorb to a level below it's flashing point. Too technical?

If the burning oil level is already close to spilling out from the container, then adding more oil will cause spillage of hot burning oil, Not A Good Thing To DO!

So, just put some alkaline in and change the oil into Soap, Fire is Out, simple?

Please do not try at home, if you are not a trained fire fighter.

If you need some training, please contact me, maybe we can share some points and do it safely.

Deep Fat Fire Is Very Difficult to Extinguish! Is your kitchen safe?

Lately, i have been working on some specification on Fire Extinguisher specially designed to extinguish fires resulting from deep fat.  Most of our homes have kitchens and we also do frying using cooking oil.  Sometimes, so much oil is used, especially deep frying, which is the favourite of malaysian cooking. Do you know that, among all the types of fires, deep fat fire is the most difficult and messy to deal with?
Why??

Most people will think that cooking oil fire is relatively easy to extinguish, judging from the tameness, less radiant heat and colour of the fire.  Most people will think petrol fire is fierce.  Talking about fire fierceness, i recently had the oppurtunity to witness a fire testing using methanol.  For those F1 fan, i think you may know that methanol is used in F1 cars.  Apparently, methanol fire is almost invisible, at first i thought the fire has been extinguihsed, but later learned that the fire is still burning.

Back to our story of cooking fire.
Theoretically, to extinguish burning cooking oil fire, we have to first prevent the oil evaporation from happening.  In other words, stop the oil from boiling and releasing the oil into the air.  The oil vapor, in the air, when mixed with oxygen, with the heat still around, is like the combustion of the engine, ignites and burns, then generating further heat, in return releasing more heat and oil vapour.

Let's look at how hot is burning oil.
Example: Sun Flower oil starts to smoke at 232 Deg Celcius.
This is the condition we need to start frying, right?
Then, how much heat (or rather, energy) is already being supplied into the oil?
For a typical vege oil, it's heat capacity is something like : 1.67 kJoule/kg.K.
This figure means, to heat up 1kg of vege oil, for 1 degree C, we need 1.67 kJ.
In the case, if there is 10 liter of oil, heated up until smoking condition, the heat enegy it contain, will be:


0.9 x 10 x (232 - 30) x 1.67  kJ  =  3036 kJ


0.9 is applied to 10Liter, to convert into kg.


And we should remember, that water starts boiling at 100 degree Celcius.
So, using water to cool down the burning oil is out of the question.
Neither is trying to use any other method containing water, simply because, when water in in contact with the hot oil, it just boils and turns into steam, and boils violently, causing the oil to splash out everywhere violently.


Take a look at this video:
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1082868/cooking_oil_dangerous/


How about the fire extinguisher that we normally have around us, the Powder or CO2 type?
I have personally tried using these types of extinguishers on burning cooking oil, yes, the fire is extinguished, but not long, it reignites again, something, we call, autoignition. 
Reason, simply because, the powder or CO2, when applied on the surface of the fire, is effective on the fire, killing the fire, but what it cannot do, is to cool down the oil, which is still hot, so hot, that it keeps on evaporating oil into the air, mixing with oxygen in the air, and ignites, because the temperature is well above the ignition point of the oil.


Then, how do we extinguisher burning cooking oil?