Fuel for Firefighting Foam Evaluations: Gasoline vs Heptane
Abstract
Gasoline and heptance pool fire extinctions have been comparatively evaluated with AFFF and fluorine-free formulations at a benchtop scale. The AFFF formulations are relatively insensitive to the identity of the fuel, but the F3 formulations display significant divergence in extinction capability, with the gasoline fire being the more difficult to extinguish. Individual major components of gasoline were tested, and the aromatic components were determined to be the source of this difficulty in gasoline fire suppression. Within the aromatic components, this effect substantially increased with the number of methyl substituents (trimethylbenzene > xylenes > toluene > benzene). This aromatic gasoline component effect correlated with extraction of surfactants across the water-fuel interface and in the same order of aromatic compound effectiveness. A trimethylbenzene-heptane mixture is similar to gasoline with respect to F3 formulation fire extinction, foam degradation, and fuel vapor transport measurements. This mixture is proposed for consideration as a standard fuel for F3 concentrate fire suppression testing in place of complex and variable gasoline compositions.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 15, 2019
- Accession Number
- AD1076690
Entities
People
- Arthur W. Snow
- John Farley
- Katherine M. Hinnant
- Ramagopal Ananth
- Spencer L. Giles
Organizations
- United States Naval Research Laboratory