Fire and Explosion Applications of FIREXX
FIREXX is
A family of expandable metal alloy chips which can be deployed at critical locations to achieve a number of effects consistently, which is ideal for any fire protection engineer. These effects include, but are not limited to, the prevention of:
- Damage to important buildings and equipment from large bomb and mine explosions
- Damage to briefcases, suitcases, important cases and chairs from bomb explosions and bullets
- Fires and explosions, from occurring in the first place
- Small fires from growing into holocausts
- Fires from travelling to new locations
- Damage to people and property from fire and explosion.
Explosion Protection :
FIREXX Fortification is the name of the range of FIREXX products, which are deployed in strategic locations such as garage or office walls and ceilings and important buildings for protecting them from damage arising from bombs and mines.
When installed on walls, FIREXX prevents small fires from growing, or travelling by efficiently dissipating combustion energy and when deployed as an explosion barrier pad, FIREXX can absorb the high blast pressure generated by vapor explosions, or by TNT or plastic explosives, such as maybe used by terrorists.
FIREXX is unique in that it can perform all of these functions with combinations of two types of material: expanded foil and ellipsoids. FIREXX accomplishes this by virtue of its unique 3- dimensional form, special metallic alloy composition, extensive internal honeycomb structure and resilient mechanical strength. FIREXX is a lightweight, low density, high porosity material, easily installed on walls with either a metallic finish (bare explosion pad) or with a decorative covering suitable for office interiors etc.
Never before has such a combination of properties been incorporated into a single product. Moreover, never before could this multi – functional properties be deployed such that they are in position to act reliably on demand.
By using FIREXX, common inside and outside walls can be made more resistant to explosions and fires. Standard walls can have their strength improved to that of steel reinforced concrete against bomb explosions.
A further use of FIREXX Fortification is in the manufacture of lightweight explosion containment boxes. These boxes maybe used to safely transport of bombs by bomb disposal teams or security forces. Decorative version of these boxes, looking like flower vases, planters or regular furniture can be kept in offices or mail rooms to safely store suspicious packages and letter bombs until qualified personnel are present to investigate them.
In a similar manner, garbage bins in public places, such as are found in high risk terrorist target areas like shopping malls, airports, railroad stations and public buildings, can be constructed to contain and mitigate the effect of a bomb or incendiary device.
High risk buildings maybe fortified against the effect of car or suitcase bombs by cladding the exterior and internal structural members with a lightweight layer of FIREXX Fortification or where space permits, complete FIREXX parameter walls maybe erected which even at point blank range will prevent an explosion from demolishing a building. FIREXX Fortification panels can be coated in architectural finishes to give the outward appearance of a regular wall. Parking garages under buildings are particularly susceptible to car bombings. FIREXX can prevent the catastrophic destruction of the buildings in this scenario.
Fire Protection:
FIREXX maybe used inside regular gypsum construction wallboard to increase the burn through time and reduce backside heat gain, thus helping to reduce fire spread rate. A proprietary FIREXX lightweight composition wallboard is available that the only 0.25” thick (6mm) will resist burn through for more than 2 hours and at 16mm thick will resist burn through for 6 hours or more. This board is particularly useful in the manufacture of fire doors and for low cost lining of elevator shafts, which can conform to current building regulations. Multi – occupancy buildings such as apartment blocks maybe effectively protected for extended periods against fire spread. Structural steel members maybe clad with FIREXX to increase their fire resistance.
As well as protecting buildings from fires and explosions, another important application of FIREXX is in preventing fire and explosion in Fuel tanks. Whether the tank is small, as found in a vehicle, or is a large bulk storage tank, FIREXX is equally effective. FIREXX is deployed in fuel tanks as ellipsoids, ellipsoidal shaped rolled mesh pieces in different volumes. The unique shape of FIREXX ellipsoids allow easy installation through small apertures as found on car fuel tanks, and also permit close nestling of each ellipsoid to completely fill a tank without voids.
In fuel tanks, FIREXX denies one or both of the requirements for fire to occur, namely, the generation of flammable atmospheres from existing by impending the vaporization of
liquid fuel, and stopping fuel vapor from mixing with air. FIREXX also prevents ignition from occurring by dissipating the build up of Electro static charges, which can be generated in re- fuelling situations, or during pumping of fuel.
In the petrochemical industry, particularly in tank farms, FIREXX can be used to dramatically increase the effectiveness of diking. Also, by applying FIREXX to control pool fires, combined with effective diking and tank explosion control, tanks maybe erected closer to each other without any increase in the risk of fire spread from tank to tank. FIREXX has an extremely high internal surface area which makes it extremely effective in flame trapping in pipelines. The porosity of FIREXX however, has virtually no effect on flow rate or gas and with its very low volume density, FIREXX will reduce tank capacity by a maximum of 2 percent.
Burning, blown out, gas and oil wells maybe extinguished by the use of FIREXX snuffers and wells maybe protected from corrosion and blown out by applying FIREXX during the drilling and construction of the well.
By use of FIREXX, aircraft cargo holds or luggage containers can be protected against terrorist bombs in luggage or protected when carrying dangerous cargoes with an explosive equivalence of many pounds of TNT or any other explosive.
The standard specification for protecting aero planes against terrorist bombs concealed in luggage has been set at 3 pounds. Security forces are confident that anything larger than 3 pounds will be detected by baggage x-ray. FIREXX can easily protect against 3 pounds and as mentioned above can safely protect an aero plane against very much larger explosions.
FIREXX Fortification is applied in aircraft in a similar manner to the way that is used for buildings, namely, a blanket of material is installed inside the luggage area, luggage containers or in cargo aircraft to cover the aircraft skin, structural members and frames. FIREXX maybe used to replace the standard fiber glass insulation, because it is an insulating material when used in this form, or can be placed over the standard fiberglass insulation to give added insulation as well as explosion protection.
Radio Frequency and Electromagnetic Pulse Screening Applications of FIREXX:
FIREXX material has been uniquely designed to outperform every other material currently available. Some of the principles applied by FIREXX were researched as long ago as 1830 by award winning British Scientist, Michael Faraday. Although Faraday's research was valid and still provides a basis for many inventions and applications, material technology was not as advanced at that time as it is now. Faraday's screening material was made from steel and had a small internal surface area. The revolutionary cutting pattern of FIREXX has a much; larger internal surface area. This improvement in material and cutting geometry gives FIREXX unique properties, which were not realized by Faraday. As well as the flame arresting properties mentioned above, there are many applications for FIREXX in solving electrical and magnetic related problems. Electrical and magnetic fields can be considered in two categories. Those external to the system in question and those emitted by, or internal to, the system.
External Fields:
General
The main danger from electrical or magnetic fields is high-energy included voltage transients, which can be sufficiently energetic to destroy electronic equipment. High-energy transients are the main cause of faille of equipment and it is area o electrical engineering hat many people ignore in equipment design.
High-energy transients are particularly dangerous to modern high-density microcircuits, because they ear particularly susceptible to pulses of energy as low as 100 micro joules. A 100 pulse will cost most IC's to fail.
The main causes of transients are induced over voltage of atmospheric origin, including lighting, nuclear electromagnetic pulses and electrostatic discharge. These pulses tend to be of high amplitude and as rise time. This category can be alleviated and often remedied by the use of FIREXX. The Mia areas of application for FIREXX in this instance are in protecting communications equipment, e.g. Military and government secure communications rooms, remote telemetry sites, e.g., utilities industry.
Nuclear Electromagnetic Pulse (NEMP)
NEMP was initially only the concern of the military; however the chaos that could result from a nuclear detonation outside the earth's atmosphere has caused civil governments to become concerned with NEMP. For example, an exo- atmospheric burst at a height of say 400 km would cause no observable damage to earth, however the energy pulse resulting from interaction of Gamma radiation and the earths atmosphere at a height of 20-40 km would result in an intense electromagnetic field spiraling round the earths magnetic field lines due to high energy electrons produced from the Compton effect and being subjected to Lorenz Forces in the earths magnetic field.
This magnetic effect would cause an energy pulse with a wavefront extending up to 1000km from the point of original detonation, which would contain sufficient energy to destroy all unprotected electronic equipment subjected to the wavefront.
WE Scientist first noted demonstrations of this effect after conducting nuclear test at remote sites in the pacific. "Inexplicable" disruption of electronic equipment was observed in Hawaii and other remote islands many kilometers from the test sites. Typical energies calculated for NEMP are 1 joule/ sq. m. of plain wave front and designers should allow for as peak electric field of 50kV/m with a rise time of 10ns and a decay time to half energy of around 200ns.
The potential for a terrorist action by a small nuclear power is alarming, picture the scenario where a virtually non hostile atmospheric nuclear detonation could wipe out all communications, control equipment for public utilities, power generation and distribution, water supply and radio broadcasting!
FIREXX can act as a shield in order to prevent NEMP wave fronts from penetrating building and destroying electronic equipment.
Radar :
Radar is a slightly different area, but comes under the broader category of external fields. The use of FIREXX is more applicable to mobile vehicles, which wish to avoid radar detection. The main operating principle of radar is that a high frequency radio wave is transmitted into the atmosphere. When the wavefront is incident upon radar reflective surface e.g. an aero plane, the reflected wave is detected by the radar system. One strategy to avoid radar detection is to reflect the radar wave in such a way that the reflected energy is too small to be detected by the radar receiving station. This can be achieved by FIREXX. The multi- faceted, radar reflective surface of FIREXX causes the radar wave to be reflected in numerous directions, dissipating the energy of the radar wave and reflecting it in directions away from the receiving station.
INTERNAL FIELDS :
General
The previous notes were concerned with preventing external fields from entering buildings, in this section; fields generated within structures will be discussed.
Communications
Communications equipment and computer screens generate radio waves, which can escape from buildings and can be intercepted with appropriate equipment. FIREXX can prevent the escape of such radio waves.
The main area of interest for applying FIREXX is in the construction of secure communications centers to prevent eavesdropping. A further benefit of using FIREXX is in preventing cross talk between different pieces of electrical equipment. For example it is well known that radio transmitters can generate spurious signals which can be received on equipment that was never designed to receive such signals e.g. television sets. Each other can affect many other types of equipment. The result may not be as obvious as receiving radio on television, but, nonetheless, electrical equipment, which emits electrical noise, can badly affect the electrical integrity of surrounding equipment.
Electrostatic discharge
One of the causes of ESD is human interaction with the atmosphere and man made fibbers in clothing, due to the capacitance of the human body (typically 80-500pF) and the discharge resistance from 50 ohms to 5k ohms. Static discharge in excess of 20k V can be generated wit a rise time of 2k/Ns. It is worth noting that women are a greater risk than men in this field due to the nature of female clothing e.g. nylon stockings and underskirts, but artificial fibers used in clothing and overalls present a great risk specially in a dry atmosphere such as that exist in Saudi Arabia and US arid regions. This type of charge build up can be instrumental in detonating fuel vapours in storage containers. When firexx is deployed in fuel containers, it can dissipate the charge and prevent fire and explosion.
Another cause of electrostatic build up is in the flow of fuels through pipes. While the charge build up probably can not reach the same level as the charge seen on the human body, there is no doubt that sufficiently high levels can accumulate to cause ESD within fuel systems, resulting in the spontaneous creation of detonation spark. FIREXX can dissipate the charge and prevent fire and explosion.
A further application of FIREXX is in safer storage of munitions and missiles. The heat dissipating characteristics of FIREXX coupled with the ability to dissipate electrostatic charge is useful in screening supplies from fires in the storage buildings and preventing electrostatic triggering of detonation devices. FIREXX can be deployed as throw over blankets and/ or incorporated in storage box design. FIREXX explosion padded walls give an added measure of security in protective strategy for munitions dump.
In summary, a building, which is screened by FIREXX, presents a far lower risk to the electronic equipment inside than the building, which has no screening.
3) Sound and thermal applications of FIREXX
A further important benefit of using FIREXX lies in the ability of FIREXX to absorb soundwaves. In any building or room where FIREXX is deployed to prevent explosion damage and fire, The protected walls will become sound proofed. Conversations within the room will not be transmitted through walls. This is useful for maintaining confidentiality in Executive offices.
Yet another benefit of using FIREXX lies in the ability of FIREXX to act as an insulating material. Buildings protected with FIREXX will be cooler in summer and warmer in winter. This is an important energy saving feature at a time when everyone should be more aware of the earths limited resources and its ability to deal with mans continuing abuse.
4) New Developments in Laser Defense
New developments in the United States are taking place in destroying missiles and aero planes by the use of high power laser guns. Ground test has already been successful in causing catastrophic destruction of replicas of the fuel tank used in SCUD missiles. Research is continuing to deploy high power lasers in wide-bodied aircraft as an airborne defense system.
Initial test on FIREXX material indicate that if FIREXX were deployed in the skin of a missile or aircraft, fuel tank, it is unlikely that current laser technology could pose a threat to penetrate FIREXX.
