An Australian company is conducting a research project to investigate the effectiveness of new innovative extinguishing systems for aircraft fires in hangars. The aim is to replace the existing gas and foam extinguishing systems. As part of this project, AQAUSYS carried out fire tests in an aircraft hangar provided by the company.
A major challenge in this project was that the exact setup (aircraft model, aluminium alloy, material thicknesses, etc.) and the associated pass/fail criteria were not known in advance. In order to be optimally prepared for the tests in Australia, simplified preliminary tests were carried out in Linz and different water mist densities and nozzle heads were analysed. After a positive evaluation of the preliminary tests and selection of potentially suitable nozzle heads, two employees travelled to the Australian outback. An old military hangar served as the test site. The test scenario was set up and the tests could begin. Due to the high security level on site, no photos of the fire tests themselves were allowed to be taken.
The demanding tests were supervised by an accredited laboratory.
