• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.24 no.6_2
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• pp.795-800
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• 2021

Magnesium fires require early fire extinguishment due to impulsive and rapid-fire expansion that makes difficult fire fighting. For this reason, efficient early fire fighting and appropriate prevention of fire spread are considered mainly as significant fire extinction measures. However, there is a limit to developing tools for metal fire fighting, such as devices, facilities, and fire extinguishing agents, due to a lack of regulatory instruments in South Korea. It often generates challenges to early fire fighting implementation by fire responders. Thus, the aim of this study is to investigate a measure for securing the efficiency of early fire fighting in magnesium. This study identified the applicability of the metal fire extinguisher used in the United States for magnesium fire through a performance test of a fire extinguishing agent for metal fire. Moreover, we implemented a free burning experiment using magnesium powder to compare varying combustion and extinction process that could occur during applying metal fire extinguishers. Finally, this study suggests measures of the use and application of metal fire extinguishers for magnesium.

• Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.644-655
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• 2023

Purpose: Metal fires occur in metal handling, processing, waste storage plants, etc. It is difficult for firefighters to extinguish metal fires, and it takes a long time, so caution is needed in fire suppression. Method: In this study, current statistics and problems of metal fires were introduced, and then the effectiveness was verified by experiments with using fire extinguishing agents used in Korea. Comparative suppression experiments of 5 different fire extinguishing agents for burning powders of 99.9% magnesium over 150 ㎛ were performed following the metal powder type test method of Class D fire in ISO 7165. Result: 5 fire extinguishing agents are the power types of dry sands and expanded vermiculites most commonly used in Korea, the certified class D fire extinguisher used abroad, and ochers requiring verification, and the liquid silica gel. Conclusion: The results of experiments showed expanded vermiculites were the best metal fire extinguishing agent considering effectiveness, convenience of use, and economical feasibility.