Warehouse premises and tank farms fire safety problem

Introduction. Presented the approach to studying impact of foaming agent process solution shelf life on the surface activity and fire-extinguishing efficiency of foams. One of the most important problems in construction is to ensure fire safety of construction objects. Fires arising at industrial facilities and construction sites are always catastrophic, both for the economy and for the environment. Storage facilities and tanks in which various types of materials and substances, often toxic and fire-hazardous, can be stored are of particular danger. Addresses the problem of oil product warehouse premises and tank farms fire safety using foam extinguishing system. The problem consists in reduction of foaming agent concentration in the process solution during long-term storage. Concentration reduction is expressed in a surface activity decrease and in violation of spreading coefficient structure, namely, by an increase in surface and interfacial tension. Consequently, the use of foaming agent process solution for extinguishing fire at oil product warehouse premises and tank farms that is not capable of providing required foam expansion ratio and spreading coefficient for successful subsurface suppression of oil products flame. Materials and methods. Four brands of fluorinated foaming agents are tested according to the methods described in GOST R 50588-2012 “Foaming agents for fire extinguishing. General technical requirements and testing methods” and GOST R 53280.2-2010 “Automatic fire extinguishing units. Fire extinguishing agents. Part 2. Foaming agents for subsurface suppression of oil and oil products fires in tanks. General technical requirements and testing methods”. Results. The studies have shown that foam quality determining fire extinguishing capacity of foam extinguishing system changes over foaming agent process solution shelf life and depends on spreading coefficient structure, which is characterized by surface and interfacial tension values for foaming agent process solution. Conclusions. The process solutions made from modern (biologically soft) fluorinated foaming agents decrease in their surface activity over time and become unsuitable for oil products subsurface suppression. To maintain efficiency of the foam extinguishing system used to ensure fire safety of oil product warehouse premises and tank farms, age of the process solution in the circulating pipeline system should not exceed one day.