BUILDING 100 IS A 104,000-square-foot aircraft hangar at Griffiss Air Park in Rome, New York. It was previously used for military aircraft storage and maintenance for a U.S. Air Force base until 1995. In 2006, Oneida County commissioned C&S Engineers to upgrade the existing hangar with a new and improved foam fire suppression system to enable the park to expand to support the storage and maintenance of larger military and commercial aircraft. The air park would be the new location for the Oneida County Airport.
After an extensive evaluation of the existing low-expansion aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) system, C&S recommended installing a new high-expansion foam system, specifying ANSUL® foam equipment and its regional distributor, Davis-Ulmer Sprinkler Co., Inc., the fire protection contractor, to install the new foam system.
 Photo courtesy of Ansul, C&S. |
The hangar had been protected with AFFF systems installed in the mid-1980s. They had to be completely removed, except for existing roof-level sprinkler piping and heat-detection systems. The high-expansion foam system was designed using a combination of National Fire Protection Association, U.S. Air Force, and U.S. Air National Guard design criteria.
SPECIFICATIONS
The new installation would be able to protect high-value aircraft and the hangar from fire, provide a fire protection system designed to minimize collateral damage and allow rapid restoration of aircraft maintenance operations, provide a cost-effective solution for the potential threat of fire, and provide a system that could protect a myriad of small to large aircraft.
Ansul’s regional distributor Davis-Ulmer Sprinkler Co. Inc. and C&S Engineers Inc. proposed the installation of an ANSUL® JET-X® High Expansion Foam System to update the existing hangar’s fire suppression system.
High-expansion foam systems are routinely specified to protect U.S. mission-critical assets including F-22 fighter aircraft, F-16 fighter jets, C-130 transports, KC-135 air-refueling tankers, and massive C-5 transport aircraft. Davis-Ulmer has been involved with the installation of high-expansion foam systems at numerous U.S. Air Force and Air National Guard bases in the northeast United States, but the project at Griffiss was the single largest high-expansion foam installation in which the company had been involved and is the largest in the country.
The ANSUL JET-X High Expansion Foam System automatically detects and suppresses fires at the source using much less water than a stand-alone water sprinkler system. It causes minimal water damage, requires less maintenance, decreases the need for containment and fire pumps, and is environmentally friendly.
The high-expansion foam system consists of 28 JET-X-15A generators; two 700-gallon horizontal bladder tanks; a 100-gallon vertical bladder tank; four six-inch proportioners; eight 100-foot hose reels; and 2,035 gallons of foam concentrate.
When the system is operating, incoming water pressurizes the bladder tank, forcing concentrate from the bladder into the proportioner at the same pressure as the water. The foam solution is discharged through water-powered foam generators positioned around the hangar to extinguish flammable liquid jet fuel fires. The highly aspirated foam-water solution extinguishes fire by cooling burning fuel, sealing liquid pool surfaces to prevent evolution of combustible vapor, and interfering with the flow of ambient air into the combustion zone.
Foam-water solution is the most effective extinguishing agent for this application, which is in accordance with National Fire Protection Association 409, Standard on Aircraft Hangars. Since the agent is nearly 850 parts air to one part foam-water solution, cleanup after system discharge is quite easy, and it leaves almost no residual contamination on the aircraft or within the hangar.
RESULTS
The project team was faced with an extremely challenging schedule; the design, installation, commissioning, and final acceptance testing had to take place within three months to meet a December 31, 2006, deadline. An aggressive completion schedule was necessary to minimize the amount of interruption caused by moving all aircraft from the old Oneida County Airport site. The project was completed approximately two weeks ahead of schedule.
After the foam system was installed, successful full-discharge tests were conducted on both docks. One occupancy requirement for Building 100 was that the foam-suppression system had to envelop the area within five feet of the exterior walls within three minutes. The ANSUL JET-X system fulfilled the requirement in less than two minutes (photo).
Oneida County now has more than 100,000 square feet of hangar space to store and maintain aircraft, protected by an advanced special-hazard fire protection system. The Griffiss site will enable Oneida County Airport to handle larger aircraft for commercial air travel and to serve as a fixed-base operator.
JIM SCHWANDER is the northeast United States foam systems manager for Ansul® Inc. He is responsible for sales, technical support, and engineering assistance for ANSUL foam agents and system hardware and manages all authorized foam distributors and sales in the region.
