Philippine Society of Mechanical Engineers

TRAINING COURSE ON FIRE PROTECTION

INTRODUCTION
BASICS OF AFSS DESIGN
DESIGN APPROACHES IN AFSS
HYDRAULIC CALCULATION BASICS
PUMP SELECTION AND SIZING
CLEAN AGENT SUPPRESSION SYSTEM
COMMERCIAL KITCHEN FIRE SUPPRESION
FIRE DETECTION AND ALARM SYSTEM
ENGRS. NARDS CORNELIO AND ALEXANDER LISTANA, PMEs
 Module 1

INTRODUCTION TO FIRE PROTECTION

OBJECTIVES OF FIRE PROTECTION

RA 9514 FIRE PROTECTION

REQUIREMENT

FOUNDING ORGANIZATIONS OF
FIRE PROTECTION ENGINEERING

TYPES OF FIRE PROTECTION

ACCORDING TO APPLICATION
INTRODUCTION

Fire protection is the study and application of scientific

and technical principles of mitigating the unwanted
effects of potentially destructive fires

3 Primary Objectives of Fire Secondary Objectives:

Protection: 1. Compliance to legislations (Fire
1. Prevent fire from becoming Code of the Philippines, National Building
Code, Phil. Electrical Code and the
destructive Philippine Mechanical Engineering Code)
2. Reduce the impact of 2. Peace of mind knowing that
uncontrolled fire your property is fire protected
3. Save lives and property 3. Reduce premium cost on
insurance

Fire Protection involves the implementation of safety planning practices and

drills, education on fire, research, investigation, building construction,
safe operations, training and testing of mitigating systems and also
includes evacuation procedures.
Republic Act No. 9514 known as the “Revised Fire Code of the
Philippines of 2008” dictates it’s the State policy to ensure public
safety & promote economic development through the prevention
and suppression of all kinds of destructive fires

 Chapter 23, Section 2003 of the 2012 Philippine Mechanical Engineering Code stated
that “An approved automatic sprinkler systems in new buildings and structures shall be
provided in the locations in accordance with the RA 9514, Revised Fire Code of the
Philippines of 2008.”

 The 2012 PME Code specifies that buildings 55 Feet (16,764 mm) or more in height
requires that automatic sprinkler system shall be installed throughout buildings with a
floor level having an occupant load of 30 or more above the lowest level of fire
department vehicle access.

 The Code also specifically stated that spaces or areas in telecommunications buildings
used exclusively for telecommunications equipment, associated electrical power
distribution equipment, batteries and standby engines are exempted provided :
a. those spaces or areas are equipped throughout with an automatic fire alarm
system, and
b. separated from the remainder of the building by fire barriers consisting of not
less than 1-hour fire-resistance-rated walls and 2-hour fire-resistance-rated
floor/ceiling assemblies.
 Summary of RA 9514 Fire Protection Requirement

a. Assembly Occupancies
• Bars with live entertainment
• Dance halls, Discotheques
• Assembly occupancies with festival seating.
• Occupant load greater than 300 persons.

b. Educational Occupancies
• Every portion of educational buildings below the floor of exit discharge
shall be protected with complete automatic sprinkler protection.

• Any flexible building or open building in which the travel distance to

exits exceeds forty six (46) meters shall have approved, supervised
sprinkler systems.

c. Health Care Occupancies

• Approved, supervised sprinkler system shall be provided throughout all
hospitals, nursing homes, and residential-custodial care facilities.
d. Detention and Correctional Facilities
• All buildings classified as Use Condition II – V under the National
Building Code shall be protected throughout by an approved,
supervised automatic sprinkler system.

e. Residential Occupancies (Hotels, dormitories and apartment buildings)

• All buildings shall be protected throughout by an approved, supervised
sprinkler system except in buildings where all guest sleeping rooms or
guest suites have a door opening directly outside at the street or grade
level or exterior exit access in buildings up to and including three (3)
storeys in height.

f. Mercantile Occupancies
• Approved and supervised automatic sprinkler system protection shall
be provided for mercantile occupancies as follows:
1. Throughout all mercantile occupancies three or more storeys in
height OR exceeding 1,115 m2 in total floor area.
2. Floor area exceeding 232 m2 when used for the sale, storage or
handling of combustible goods and merchandise.
g. Business Occupancies

• All business occupancy buildings fifteen (15) meters or more in height

shall be provided throughout with approved, supervised sprinkler
system. Building height shall be measured from the ground level to floor
of the topmost storey.

h. Industrial and Storage Occupancies

• Every high hazard occupancy shall have:
1. Automatic fire suppression system protection or other equivalent
protection as may appropriate to the particular hazard
2. Explosion venting for any area subject to an explosion hazard,
3. Any other means of protection designed to minimize danger to
occupants in case of fire or other emergency before they have
time to utilize exits to escape.
The world’s first recognizable sprinkler system was installed in
the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in the United Kingdom in 1812.
The system was designed by its architect, William Congreve.
 The Concreve design consisted of a cylindrical airtight reservoir of 95,000 liters
fed by a 10-inch (250 mm) water main which branched to all parts of the
theatre. A series of smaller pipes fed from the distribution pipe were pierced
with a series of ½ -inch (13 mm) holes which pour water in the event of a fire.

 From 1852 to 1885, perforated pipe systems were used in textile mills
throughout England as a means of fire protection. Inventors first began
experimenting with automatic sprinklers around 1860. The first automatic
sprinkler system was patented by Philip W. Pratt.

 Henry S. Parmalee of New Haven, Connecticut is considered the inventor of the

first practical automatic sprinkler head. Parmalee improved upon the Pratt
patent and created a better sprinkler system. In 1874, he installed his fire
sprinkler system in his owned factory.

 Until the 1940s, sprinklers were installed almost exclusively for the protection of
commercial buildings, whose owners were generally able to recoup their
expenses with savings in insurance costs. Over the years, fire sprinklers have
become mandatory safety equipment.
 The Founding Organizations of Fire Protection
Engineering

a. Factory Mutual (FM)

• FM provides comprehensive global commercial and industrial property insurance,
engineering-driven underwriting and risk management solutions and services.

• FM Approved products provide the right materials to address exposures and

protection of facilities. The Approval Guide, an innovative product of FM Approvals,
contains “real-time” information about tens of thousands of products and services
tested and FM Approved, as well as essential engineering data and technical
information on the application and use of listed products.

• It started when Zachariah Allen, a prominent mill owner in Rhode Island in 1835,
combined the concepts of mutual insurance and property protection to form
Manufacturers Mutual Fire Insurance Company. This insurance company was
based on the concept of insuring factories that were good risks and but would
ultimately pay less for insurance. By utilizing proper fire prevention methods and
regular fire inspections, the concept proved to be successful and the Factory
Mutual (FM) system was born.

• FM grew in influence and became one of the major insurers of highly protected
risks (HPRs) worldwide, continuing the concept of using fire protection
engineering to achieve property loss prevention.
b. Underwriters Laboratories (UL)

• UL is a premier global independent safety science company, a benchmark

of trust and delivers peace of mind to businesses, governments and
consumers all over the world.

• UL certifies, validates, tests, inspects, audits, and advises and trains. It

provides expertise from compliance and regulatory issues to trade
challenges and market access.

• It started in 1893 when insurance companies concerns about the fire risk of
the electrical wiring of 100,000 Edison incandescent light bulbs at the
Palace of Electricity at the Worlds Columbian Exposition (World’s Fair) of
1893 in Chicago . It resulted in the hiring of a young electrical engineer from
Boston, William Henry Merrill, to ensure that the exhibition was safe.

• The success of this venture led Merrill, with the financial support of the
National Board of Fire Underwriters (NBFU), to set up a laboratory to test
the safety of electrical products which became Underwriters Laboratories.

• Throughout the remainder of the 20th century, UL grew to become a major

independent, not-for-profit testing organization in America and a
leader in advancing the science of fire protection engineering.
c. National Fire Protection Association (NFPA)

• Founded in 1896, NFPA is a global, non-profit organization devoted to

eliminating death, injury, property and economic loss due to fire, electrical
and related hazards. The association delivers information and knowledge
through more than 300 consensus codes and standards, research, training,
education, outreach and advocacy.

• In response to concerns about the reliability of automatic sprinkler systems due

to a lack of standardization, a group of insurance company representatives
formed NFPA to provide the science and improve the methods of fire protection
and to circulate information on this subject.

• NFPA organized technical committees of experts to establish consensus on the

design of fire protection systems and fire protection safeguards for various
hazardous occupancies.

• Throughout the 20th century, many of the advances in fire protection were
brought about as a reaction to disastrous fires. NFPA and its technical
committees were instrumental in shaping the foundation of fire protection
engineering. The rationale for fire protection engineering solutions was
published in the NFPA Fire Protection Handbook.
Fire protection in land-based buildings, offshore
construction or onboard ships is typically achieved by
the following types:

Passive fire protection

- the installation of firewalls, fire proofing, fire rated floor assemblies,
isolation of fuel materials and compartmentalization intended to limit
the spread of fire, high temperatures and smoke.

Active fire protection

- manual and automatic detection and suppression of fires, such
as fire sprinkler systems, fire hydrant, standpipes and fire alarm and
detection systems.

Education
- the provision of information regarding passive and active fire
protection systems to building owners, operators, occupants, and
emergency personnel so that they have a working understanding of
the intent of these systems and how they perform in the fire safety
plan.
Active Fire Protection System is anchored on
performance based codes that emphasize both life
safety and property protection

WATER-BASE SUPPRESSION SYSTEM

POWDER OR DRY CHEMICAL-BASE

SUPPRESSION SYSTEM

GAS-BASE SUPPRESSION SYSTEM

 WATER-BASED SYSTEM

• HYDRANT
• WATER MIST SPRAY
• FOAM
• SPRINKLER
 HYDRANT SYSTEM
A fire hydrant, also called fireplug, is a
connection point by which firefighters can
tap into a water supply

In a building, a fire hydrant system is a safety

measure or emergency equipment that
comprises a series of components that when
assembled together provide a source of water
to assist fire authorities in case of fire.

Fire hydrant systems comprise the following

primary components:
•Water Supply
•Pipework & Valves
•Pump Set
•Hydrant Valve or Landing Valve & Coupling
•Fire Hose
 WATER MIST SPRAY

A water mist system is a fire

protection system which uses a very
fine water sprays that produces mists.

The small water droplets allow the water

mist to control, suppress or extinguish
fires by:
1. cooling both the flame
and surrounding gases by evaporation
2. displacing oxygen by evaporation
3. attenuating radiant heat by the small
droplets themselves
The effectiveness of a water mist
system in fire suppression depends
on its spray characteristics, which
include the droplet size distribution,
flux density and spray dynamics such
as the shielding of the fuel, fire size
and ventilation conditions.

Water mist fire suppression, when

compared to the use of gaseous agents
and traditional sprinkler systems, has the
following advantages:
1. Immediate activation
2. High efficiency in the suppression of a
wide variety of fires
3. Minimized water damage
4. Environmentally sound characteristics
5. No toxic issues
 FIRE SUPPRESION FOAM SYSTEM

Fire suppression foam is

comprised of three parts: foam
concentrate, water and air.

When mixed correctly, these parts

form a homogeneous foam
blanket that extinguishes flames
by the combined mechanisms of:
1. Cooling
2. Separating the flame source
from the product surface
3. Suppressing vapors
4. Smothering
Air Foam concentrate makes fine
foams with excellent stability and
thermal resistance, and freely flows
and develops on liquid surface such as
petroleum to promptly extinguish a fire.
It also sticks firm to a solid surface,
level or vertical, to prevent the fire from
spreading.

The foam blanket Applications:

efficiently 1. Aircraft hangars
transports small 2. Basements and cable tunnels
amounts of water 3. Flammable packaging areas
to the fire, 4. Flammable and combustible liquid drum storage areas
encapsulating the 5. Hazardous waste facilities
flammable 6. LNG tank farms and loading facilities
vapors and 7. Mines
causing 8. Roll-paper warehouses
suppression and 9. Shipboard engine rooms
extinguishment. 10. Storage buildings and warehouses
The system comprises Water Source, Fire Pump, Air Foam
Concentrate, Proportioner, Foam Maker, Foam Discharge Outlet,
Control Panel, Pipe, Fire Alarm and Detectors
 POWDER OR DRY-CHEMICAL-BASE SYSTEM

The extinguishing powders used in powder

extinguishing systems are highly efficient,
quick-acting extinguishants.

The three-dimensional extinguishing effect of

the powder cloud is caused by the suffocation
effect and the so-called anti-catalytic effect, a
chemical intervention into the combustion
process.

Extinguishing powders mainly consist of non-

poisonous inorganic salts mixed with
waterproofing and pouring agents. They are
used for fires with solid, liquid or gaseous
substances and for metal fires.
Applications:

• Chemical plants
• Tank farms
• Compressor stations
• Substations for oil and
gas
• Gas burner stations on
boilers systems
• Oil storage facilities
• Rolling mills
• Motor test beds
• Hydraulic systems
• Aircraft hangars
• Storage facilities for
hazardous substance
and flammable liquids
• Laboratories
• Special waste facilities
 GAS-BASE SYSTEM

Module Clean Agent Fire Suppression System (CASS)