Fire-Control Practices

The full title of this standard is, Fire Prevention and Control on Open Type Offshore Production Platforms. It provides recommendations for rninimizing the likelihood of having an accidental fire, and for designing, inspecting, and maintaining fire control systems. It emphasizes the need to train personnel in firefighting, to conduct routine drills, and to establish methods and procedures for safe evacuation. The fire control systems discussed in this recommended practice are intended to provide an early response to incipient fires to prevent their growth. They provide a baseline, and are not intended to preclude the appUcation of more... 

Once the plan has been formulated, it becomes necessary to establish procedures in a clear and concise manner. Such procedures should include a general policy on security, an organisation chart indicating levels of responsibility for security, employment practices for the hiring of security staff, including detailed job descriptions and the duties and responsibilities of such staff, such as arrest and search powers. Detailed systems should also be developed to ensure the security of premises, protection of property, control of persormel and vehicles, including traffic control, security liaison with the fire control function, accident control and first aid to the injured. 

Plant Fireproofing. There is a growing practice in the chemical industry of locating principal equipment out of doors and to enclose only a control room where all instmments and control equipment are centered. The control room should be resistant to potential explosion, fire, and toxicity ha2ards of processes in the vicinity. Prompt and ordedy shutdown of processes following a serious incident is essential in order to minimise personnel-injury and property-loss ha2ards (65,66). 

Design to contain overpressure where practical Maintain ignition source control Maintain use of inert atmosphere Provide automatic isolation via quick closing valves of manifold duct system on detection of fire/flammable atmosphere or overpressure in duct system... 

NFPA 92A Recommended Practice for Smoke-Control Systems. National Fire Protection Association, Quincy, MA. 

NFPA 328 Recommended Practice for the Control of Flammable and Combustible Liquids and Gases in Manholes, Sewers, and Similar Underground Structures, 1992 edition. National Fire Protection Association, Quincy, MA. 

Figure 19.2 illustrates a burner at a fixed firing rate. In practice, many burners will have a varying firing rate with inferior performance at turndown, mainly because of poor mixing caused by reduced kinetic energy of both air and gas. To allow for this, the control system must provide for an increasing excess air with turndown. 

If the flue is operating under negative pressure, which is often the case, care should be taken that no tramp air is allowed to enter the flue upstream of the sampling point, as this will give erroneous measurements. The trim system should be set to follow the practical firing curve and, in the event of a malfunction, be disabled so that it ceases to have any influence on the air/gas ratio, which reverts to the normal load control only. 

Code of Practice No. 3, Prevention and Control of Fire Involving LPG... 

Pressure vessels and appurtenances should be constructed of stainless steel or other corrosion-resistant materials. Ideally, these steam generators should receive hot demineralized FW to minimize chemical treatment requirements. Alternatively, where a main boiler plant is installed, 100% steam condensate provides a good source of FW. In practice, it is very difficult to accurately control the correct amount of chemical feed. Chemicals are typically restricted to potable grade, deposit control agents such as polyacrylates, and other materials listed under the Code of Federal Regulations, CFR 21 173.310, or National Sanitary Foundation (NSF International) approval system. These boilers may be electrically heated or gas-fired. 

The counterflow configuration has been extensively utilized to provide benchmark experimental data for the study of stretched flame phenomena and the modeling of turbulent flames through the concept of laminar flamelets. Global flame properties of a fuel/oxidizer mixture obtained using this configuration, such as laminar flame speed and extinction stretch rate, have also been widely used as target responses for the development, validation, and optimization of a detailed reaction mechanism. In particular, extinction stretch rate represents a kinetics-affected phenomenon and characterizes the interaction between a characteristic flame time and a characteristic flow time. Furthermore, the study of extinction phenomena is of fundamental and practical importance in the field of combustion, and is closely related to the areas of safety, fire suppression, and control of combustion processes. 

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