ADVANCED FIRE PROTECTION DELUGE SYSTEM (AFPDS)

摘要

For several years munitions plants have been plagued by deflagrations of pyrotechnic material causing loss of life, serious injuries, and extensive property damage. The cause of these problems is detection and suppression systems too slow for current applications or hampered by false alarm stimuli. As a result, the Army and Air Force teamed to seek solutions to improve munitions fire detection and suppression. In the first phase of the program, the Advanced Fire Protection Deluge System (AFPDS) was designed, constructed and tested. It consistently extinguished small energetic material burns in 30 milliseconds after flame detection at a distance of 36 inches. The system includes explosively actuated water suppression devices and improved high-speed optical flame detectors that decrease the possibility of false alarms without significant increase in response time. In Phase II, suppression tests of additional materials proved successful and spectral emission characteristics of several pyrotechnics and propellants were measured to provide data for optimizing the response of optical flame detectors. Tests of the AFPDS in an operational environment led to development of an even faster prototype optical detector. Continuing work is developing the prototype detector and reducing detection and suppression system activation times from 2-5 milliseconds to much less than one millisecond.