Well deck fire suppression tests.
(Credit: Image courtesy of Naval Research Laboratory)

ScienceDaily (Nov. 24, 2009) — A fire aboard a Navy ship can quickly become a deadly cauldron. The grim reminders of this would be the deadly fires that took place aboard the USS Forrestal in 1967 or the USS Enterprise in 1969.

Today's Navy scientists are conducting research to insure that sailors and their ships can be protected from the deadly effects of fire. The Navy Technology Center for Safety & Survivability, located at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC, carries out research aimed to solve current and future Navy problems regarding combustion, fire extinguishment, fire modeling and scaling, damage control, and atmosphere hazards. Dr. Frederick Williams, Director of the Center explains that, "The Center's mission is to assure that the sailors have the best tools possible to combat the ravages of shipboard fires."

The Center has unique fire research facilities that include pressurable chambers up to a 10,000 cubic foot capacity at the Centers test site at NRL's Chesapeake Bay Detachment in Calvert County, Maryland. The Center also has custody of the world's unique fire test ship, ex-USS Shadwell (LSD-15) located in Mobile Alabama, where full-scale fire and damage control tests are conducted using the reality conformations of active duty sailors. Using the ex-USS Shadwell, NRL scientists are able to enhance their technology base for introducing advanced damage control concepts to the fleet. The ship provides a unique opportunity to realistically experience a true damage control environment, to create a partnership between the technical and fleet communities, and to take advantage of new insights gleaned during full-scale experimentation.

Today's Navy scientists and engineers are seeing success in several areas of fire fighting research. Two areas that are of particular note involve the use of high expansion foam and halon alternatives.

High Expansion Foam

Scientists at NRL have successfully tested high expansion foam aboard the U.S. Navy fire test vessel, ex-USS Shadwell. The Navy is interested in the use of high expansion foam to protect large volume, mission critical spaces, such as hangar bays, well decks, vehicle stowage areas and magazines in future ships. In highly obstructed spaces, fires collect behind obstructions or underneath machinery and are difficult to reach by traditional water or low expansion foam spray systems. High expansion foam can quickly fill a compartment and get water to fire threats in amounts sufficient to extinguish the fires but substantially less than amounts than typically delivered by deluge sprinkler water systems.

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