Hardened Water Deluge System for Melt/Pour Plant

Establishing the vulnerability of water deluge system to blast and fragments is a continuing problem. Typically, the meltpour facility at Lone Star Army Ammunition Plant AAP is continuing in buildings which are inter- connected by ramps. Transporting explosives through these ramps poses the threat of explosion on fire propagating from one building to another. Since such incidents can destroy conventional fire detection and protection systems, this program was initiated to identify deluge systems capable of withstanding detonation without compromising their capability to extinguish secondary fires. A series of scaled tests established the general magnitude of the threat nozzles were chosen from water coverage tests deluge tests demonstrated that deluge systems properly tuned to the rampconveyor configuration can extinguish explosive fires in a reasonable length of time, and the survivability of alternate hardened deluge systems was demonstrated. The wide-spray nozzle proved to be more effective than the narrow-spray in maintaining water on the explosive at different water pressures and damage levels. The rate of application is affected by the degree of pressure and the amount of damage, and is particularly sensitive to the position of the nozzle with respect to the explosive. A small change in position significantly changes the water coverage. On-the-pad deluge systems would have difficulty surviving the blast and fragment environment subsurface systems are needed.