Numerical Study on Flow and Release Characteristics of Gas Extinguishing Agent under Different Filling Pressure and Amount Conditions

Abstract

The fire-extinguishing system is an indispensable fire-protection facility on the aircraft. In order to guide weight reduction of the aircraft’s fixed gas fire-extinguishing system by improving its release efficiency, so as to improve fuel economy and reduce carbon emissions, the influence of filling pressures and filling amounts on the release efficiency of gas extinguishing agent along pipelines were studied based on numerical simulations. The release process of the fire-extinguishing system was analyzed. The effects of the filling pressure and filling amount of Halon 1301 agent on the release characteristics, such as release time, mass flow rate, and gasification ratio, were studied. Results show that the release process can be divided into three major phases, which are firstly the initial rapid filling of the pipeline, secondly the concentrated release of the liquid extinguishing agent, and thirdly the gas ejection along the pipeline. The second phase can also be subdivided into two stages: the outflow of the liquid extinguishing agent from the bottle, and the release of the residual liquid extinguishing agent along the pipeline. The release characteristics of the fire-extinguishing agent were obviously affected by the filling pressures and filling amounts. When the filling pressure was relatively low (2.832 MPa), increasing the filling pressure can significantly increase the mass flow rate, shorten the release time, and reduce the gasification ratio of the extinguishing agent during the release processes. Under the same filling pressure, with the increase of the filling amount of the extinguishing agent, the release times and the gasification ratio showed a linear increase trend, while the average mass flow rates showed a linear decrease trend.