Experiments on extinction of liquid hydrocarbon fires by a particulate mineral

Abstract

A series of experiments on gasoline fires were carried out in a 45-cm-high open-top mild steel tank in the diameter range of 27.5–75 cm in order to study experimentally how efficiently liquid hydrocarbon fires in storage tanks could be extinguished by a particulate mineral. For 30-, 45-, 60-, and 75-cm-diameter tank fires, the minimum thickness of the fire extinction volume of the exfoliated vermiculite required for complete extinction of fires is 16 cm for an average 4.5-mm particle size distribution; further it is a linear tangent function of the minimum fire extinction volume of the exfoliated vermiculite and the size of fire to be extinguished.