Zero Maintenance Fire Shield
A first response step to fight fires. The fire shields will drop down from the ceiling when it senses temperatures over 65 deg. C
Description
Most factory owners do not want to invest in a fire-fighting due to the cost of equipment, installation, and maintenance involved. With the fire shield, there is only an initial cost of installation required as the equipment cost is relatively inexpensive. As a majority of fires in textile factories are electrical fires, automatically deployed water-based extinguishing techniques can do more harm than good (water is a good conductor of electricity). Therefore, there needs to be a step between these two stages of fire initiation and fire extermination: that's where the job of the fire shield comes in. To prevent propagation of fires. In 1821, Guy-Lussac, he saturated fabrics with boron salts and found that boron compounds could indeed prevent cloth, paper, and other cellulose-based materials from burning. The fireproofing chemical wouldn’t affect the color of cloth — or turn it poisonous. Using this principle, the fire shield can be an inexpensive fabric saturated with boron salts. The four ends of the cloth can have appropriate weights tied to their four ends(Note: even the threads use to tie the ends must be saturated with boron salts). Now, In order to install the shield on the ceiling, the four ends can be secured to the ceiling with means of a u-design screw with a strip woods metal. When a fire starts and the temperature of the room rises above 65 degrees Celsius, the wood metal will melt, breaking the mounting on which the shield rests. This causes the shield to fall onto the fire. The shield will thus block out air supply to the fire, and prevent it from spreading. The ceiling can be subdivided into parts, depending on the size and height of the operating machines above it. This will ensure that only shields near the fire are deployed A green border can be given at the margins of each shield in case a human is trapped under the shield. By, locating and crawling to the nearest green line, the trapped person can find their way out in case of emergencies. After the fire shield is deployed from the ceiling. The workers can proceed to switch of electric supply, use fire extinguishers , call emergency services or douse the fire using a hosepipe. Advantages of the system: 1. Cheaper than other fire extinguishing services 2. Works with existing fire systems in place that workers are used to thus reducing the training required. 3. No cost to maintain or standby costs. 4. Best for electric and fuel fires that are worsened by water. Disadvantages 1. Cannot be used for Grade A fires 2. Could be a hazard if workers do not clear the area. 3. Proper inspection of plant and planning of the various shield sizes is required in order to cover all areas efficiently.
References
https://makezine.com/projects/make-43/joseph-gay-lussac-and-the-technology-of-fireproofing/ https://www.explainthatstuff.com/firesprinklers.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood%27s_metal