Fogmaker International AB, a leader in fire suppression systems for large scale applications and machinery details the systems cooling and suppression benefits
Fogmaker International AB manufactures fire suppression systems for engine rooms and enclosed spaces. The company was founded in Växjö, Sweden, in 1995 and while its core activities and head-office are still there, Fogmaker has grown to having partners in 70 countries, three subsidiaries, and nearly 400,000 installed systems worldwide. Today, Fogmaker is recognized as an industry leader in safety awareness and the systems can be found everywhere from buses to combines to mining equipment.
The system is always active, automatic, and independent of electricity and position. When the system detects a fire in the protected area, it deploys a water-based mist. Thanks to a combination of high pressure and specially designed nozzles, each water drop in the mist is divided into thousands of tiny droplets that together has a much larger surface area than regular drops. This means the mist can assimilate heat faster than regular water. It expands quickly, chokes the fire, and keeps cooling the area to prevent flare-ups.
The cooling effect is imperative, especially with the current move towards electric vehicles where water-based mist has been identified as the preferred fire suppression method.
A Fogmaker system is tailored to each type, make, model, and energy source – they all have different risk areas – and most systems are designed to cool between 35 and 90 seconds, but cooling times can be even longer. The system is the most tested and certified in the world and serves a wide range of sectors, including Buses, Mining, Material Handling, Forestry, Trucks, Construction Equipment, Agriculture, and Airports.
The Fogmaker System
The piston accumulator filled with extinguishant and nitrogen and pressurised to 100–105 bar is connected to a distribution system consisting of distribution hoses, distribution pipes and Fogmaker’s patented high-pressure water mist nozzles.
The detector bottle filled with detector liquid and nitrogen, pressurised to 24 bar, is connected to a polymer detector tube.
The piston accumulator and the detector bottle are interlinked via a patented release valve that keeps the piston accumulator closed if the pressure in the detection system is normal. If there is a fire, the detector tube bursts, the pressure falls in the detection system and the valve on the piston accumulator releases. As the system deploys, the pressure switch warns the driver through the alarm system.
The extinguishant is pressed through the distribution system’s nozzles and a high-pressure water mist is spread throughout the protected volume. Absorbs heat: 1 litre of high-pressure water mist is converted into 1700 litres of water vapour by consuming 540,000 kilocalories. Fogmaker’s water mist contains drops so small that 8,000 of them fill out a normal-sized water drop.
