FIRE DYNAMIC SIMULATION FOR THE DESIGN OF FIRE PROTECTION SYSTEM IN INDUSTRIAL WASHING MACHINE

Abstract

Industrial washing machines are commonly used in the industrial part washing process.
Since one of the substances used in the process is flammable liquid, there is a high risk of fire
that may lead to human injury and property damage. This article presents the design of a fire
protection system for a 2.5 × 8.8 × 2.1 m industrial washing machine in accordance with the NFPA
12. The heat release rate of a flammable liquid is 841.7 kW/m². The appropriate fire protection
system is a Rate-by-Area, Local Application, carbon dioxide system with 2 nozzles installed at
a height of 1 meter over a dipping tank at a flow rate of 24 kg per minute per nozzle for 30
seconds.
The design validation was done by a fire dynamics simulation with the Fire Dynamics
Simulator (FDS) program at worst case scenario when the fire occurred in the dipping tank that
contained flammable liquid. From the simulation, it was found that the fire extinguishing system
was able to extinguish the fire within 11 seconds where the temperature decreased to a normal
level according to the NFPA 12, which required a maximum extinguished time of 30 seconds and
the oxygen content decreased below 5% within 20seconds, which was a non-flammable state.