Abstract
Aim: Improvement of subsurface extinguishing technique of oil and oil products fires in storage tanks.
Introduction: One of priority directions in prevention of large-scale oil and oil products leaks is the fire protection of oil and oil products storage tanks. An emergence of a fire in one of the tanks in the storage tank facility, failure in its localizing and suppressing can lead to the damage to the tank, leakage of oil or oil products, fast spread of a fire through the entire storage tank complex, destruction of other tanks and even more large-scale leaks of oil and its products. The subsurface method of low expansion foam application is possible not only thanks to the foam pipelines of fire extinguishing systems, but also through the utility lines (oil pipelines, lines for washing out ground deposits), located in the lower part of a tank. Thus, the risk of a damage to the foam generators and pipelines of suppression system due to explosions and thermal streams is completely excluded. Low expansion foam arriving from foam generators located behind the protective dike pushes out the fuel from the pipelines and arrives into the tank.
Conclusions: An operative cutting integrated device (further – OCID) for cutting holes in utility lines and transferring fire extinguishing air-mechanical low expansion foam into the fuel layer has been designed and constructed. The OCID can be installed on the pipelines of 159, 168 or 219 mm of external diameter and with lacquer coating. The tactical and technological methods of the operative cutting integrated device for utility lines of storage tanks, designed for the implementation of subsurface method of fire extinguishing have been experimentally developed. Implementation of OCID allows to transfer the foam under the layer of burning oil product in the storage tank not equipped with stationary mounted foam pipeline for extinguishing purposes. Application of the OCID will increase the efficiency of fire extinguishing and will provide higher level of staff’s safety.
Relevance in practice: Fire extinguishing of oil and oil products in storage tanks not equipped with stationary fire-extinguishing system with the help of subsurface method is principally possible through the utility lines. Supply of air and mechanical foam is carried out both through the existing branch pipes and in the branches which are received by the way of the operative cutting integrated device. The tasks of the operative cutting integrated device are solved with the help of serially produced equipment.
Keywords: a fire, air-mechanical foam fire extinguishing, subsurface method extinguishing oil and petroleum products, built-in bandage, pipeline valve