Increasing the effectiveness of extinguishing fires in the undercarriage of the subway with gel-forming compounds

Abstract

The effectiveness of extinguishing fires in the undercarriage space of cars at subway stations has been increased due to the use of a special trolley for supplying gel-forming compounds to hard-to-reach places under subway cars. In order to ensure the delivery of the gelling system to hard-to-reach places under the subway cars, it is proposed to use a special cart that moves inside the main track of the subway in the deepened tray of the water collector, thanks to a cable winch on the «pull-push» principle with an autonomous electric reversing drive. To confirm the effectiveness of extinguishing, on a special stand that allowed changing the position of the model hearth in space, to the position of the conventional ceiling-floor, comparative experiments were conducted for three types of the most common fire extinguishing agents, with the determination of the average values of the time and consumption of fire extinguishing agents for fire extinguishing, with at different angles of inclination of their submission. It is recognized that the use of gel-forming compounds when extinguishing equipment elements in the undercarriage space helps to reduce extinguishing costs and allows to extinguish the fire under the car 2,5 times faster. It was established that the change in the angle of inclination of the burning surface significantly affects the effectiveness of extinguishing with water and fire-extinguishing powder. The obtained data confirm the expediency of creating special carts for undercarriage extinguishing using fire-extinguishing gelling compounds. The obtained results are useful and im-portant, as they confirm the increase in the effectiveness of extinguishing the weighted space with gel-forming compositions, reflect a reduction in times of time and consumption of fire extinguishing agent when using gel-forming compositions. The use of a special weighted extinguishing cart with gel-forming compositions allows automated remote extinguishing in hard-to-reach places of the weighted space, which significantly increases the safety of rescuers when extinguishing such fires.