Marine Fire Systems - Research Paper Example

Fire is a natural disaster that can occur at any place leading to the loss of lives and goods worth millions. In the past years, there has been a rise in fire accidents in ships transporting people and cargo in the marine. Fire detection is the process of identifying a fire incident as soon as it occurs for immediate action. Fire suppression would refer to the act of fighting a fire break down to curb it’s spreading and minimize damage to people or goods around. At the moment the shipping industry has presented a new challenge as more large and complex ships are being designed and build.

Many of the ships are made of several adventurous comfortable facilities which are mainly made of plastic material. This further poses a great threat to the fire attack on the same vessel. Some other improvements in the shipping industry have included the introduction of light and composite materials that allow the modern vessels to move at a faster speed. It is from such trends that the international maritime authority allows the incorporation of both a performance based design and a legally prospective approach to the design.

(Dempsey pp.137-159)Gas fire fighting systemMarine ship fires have no doubt become a major threat to the safety of cargo and people on board. In such cases, there is no fire response unit to call as a result the crew is tasked with the responsibility of dealing with the fire by themselves. Traditionally many marines were using the carbon IV oxide system to fight fires in case of an outbreak. This used to work but had its limitation in case accidental leakage of the gas had a negative impact on the crew on board.

Even though a lot of security measures against fires have to be put in place, carbon iv oxide increases the overall weight and building costs of any shipping vessel making it uneconomical to use. This has prompted the idea of inventing a system that can replace the heavy piping work by having a space generator for purposes of fighting fire accidents. (Fukuchi, N. and Hu, C. 2004).

The figure below is an illustration of a typical carbon IV oxide fire fighting unit that was being used on ships to fight fire out breaks while in the sea. It mainly composed of heavy piping network, pneumatic pressure system, remote controllers, actuator and pneumatic time delay mechanism (Bruegman, R. 2009).  Figure 1: typical layout of marine carbon IV oxide system Table 1: typical usage for cylinders and carbon IV oxide for a 500 m3 system. From the table it can be noted that there is a significant difference in weight between using a clean agent and carbon dioxide for fire fighting.

The reduction ratio of an 8:1 helps reduce the overall weight by around 40%. (Fukuchi, N. and Hu, C. 2004). Disadvantages of using carbon IV oxide include: Compromising safety of crew members on board, unnecessary piping, weight on the ship, tedious in installation of the system, expensive due to the high number f component count for instance the nozzles and storage tanks (Bruegman, R. 2009).  Water fire fighting They make good utilization of the water that is freely available in water bodies to be discharged to the flame thereby putting away the flame.

This is archived by use of a piping system. There are several types of water fire extinguishing which include: The wet type: where the pipes are continuously fixed to a water source from where they can easily transport water to the point of need during fire fighting. Automatic sprinklers which are heat sensitive are strategically positioned at various points in the ship which turn on as soon as flame heat is detected putting out the fire within the shortest time possible (Bruegman, R. 2009).  The preaction type: in this type independent smoke and heat sensors are connected to the water pipes.

After detecting presence of a fire a signal is send to the pressure valve which opens the outlet of water through the piping’s to the designated area of fire. Deludge type ; in this case the type is used in high risk fires for instance oil tankers the sprinklers are pressure controlled . In case of a fire and the actuator signal is send all the sprinkler valves are opened releasing water into the piping at a very high pressure. It’s very dangerous type if the water is open by a false alarm Powder fire fighting extinguishers It involves use of powders such as sodium bicarbonate to put out the fire.

The chemicals are specially made after undergoing sequence of chemical reactions leading to formation water repellant, non abrasive particles which are free flowing. They are stored in storage tanks and applied by use of special type of sprayers. Mainly used when dealing with fires in areas with a lot of flammable liquids and gases. Use of chemical foam It involves reacting of two materials to form a covering protective layer on the flame trapping the combustion gas and in the process extinguishing the fire.

This reaction involves use of sodium bicarbonate as a stabilizer alongside with aluminium sulphate. When they react pressure difference is created which expels the agent forming a protective covering layer that inhibits further combustion process thereby putting out the flame (Bruegman, R. 2009).  Research and development It is with the high rise of fire accidents that has prompted the investing in research and development to ensure modern fire detection and suppression systems are put in place.

A fire and smoke simulator model has been developed to help visualize the spread of fire or smoke in a water vessel. However the modern marine ships have a lot of challenges when it comes to fire fighting because of the nature of their construction. The body is made water tight making it more expensive to install heavy complex ventilation systems that can easily eliminate smoke in case of fire outbreak for safety of the crew members. Using steel and aluminium has always exposed the ship to rapid fire spreading at the boundaries where the metals are joined.

(Dembsey pp.137-159) Some of the basic requirements regarding to the safety of ships are outlined as follows i.