Experimental Study of Explosive Water Mist Extinguishing Fire

Abstract Explosive water mist extinguishing fire is a method in which using the energy of explosion to push and disperse water into water mist to extinguish fire. Compared with the present ways of suppressing fire such as water mist fire suppressing system, water dropped by helicopters and so on, explosive water mist extinguishing fire has the merits of high efficiency in extinguishing fire, can be used far away from fire and so on, therefore it has a bright applying prospect in the field of suppressing forest fire and grassland fire suppression etc.. In this paper, interaction between explosive water mist and fire was investigated, temperature variations during the interaction were obtained by thermocouple and infrared radiation thermometer respectively, and photos during the interaction were taken by a DV Digital Video. Moreover, characteristic parameters of explosive water mist were calculated, interaction mechanism between explosive water mist and fire was analyzed. It is showed that effect of explosive water mist on fire roots in shock waves and explosive water mist, the former works in a complicated way for strong shock waves suppress combustion but weak shock waves work on the contrary. Explosive water mist suppresses combustion forcefully by mechanism of lower the temperature and insulating oxygen in order to asphyxiate, etc.. Besides, explosive water mist has comparatively large momentum, which enables it pass through smoke to act on the surface of fuel, because of its big velocity.