Fire Protection System for a Vacuum Chamber

[firespace]

I am looking for any information, or experience anyone has, on installing a suppression system in a vacuum chamber. The thermal vacuum chamber will reach 3000 F and be pressurized with nitrogen. Part of the test apparatus will be using a graphite felt type insulation. Becasue of the large surface area presented by the felt, there is a potential fire hazard, if air suddenly enters the chamber. I am thinking of piping some type of inertia agent into the chamber. Does anyone have any thoughts, comments or suggestions?

 

[cdafd]

How big of chamber.

How were you going to activate it, manually?

Not sure if an agent hitting 3000 degree heat would do any thing.

Can you just keep the chamber shut and some how sut off what ever oxygen that is getting in? or keep pumping nitrogen into it.

 

[firespace]

The chamber is 402 cubic feet. I would like to have auto and manual activation, however installing detection may not be feasible. The test will be observed at all times, so having some type of manual activation would be sufficient. The reason I am leaning towards an inertia agent, instead of a water based system, is because of the damage that would be caused to electrical components that are housed inside the chamber. My first thought was to just keep the chamber shut until the fire goes out, however they are worried that too much damage would be done to the interior of the chamber and the test apparatus.

 

[cdafd]

Suggest you contact some of the bigger name companies that deal with clean agent and have them advise you if it can even be done. Not sure if you have heard of VESDA and not sure if it would work in your set up but you might check into it for detection.

http://www.reliablefire.com/vesdafolder/vesda.html

Will it work on the class of fire involved.

http://www.e1.greatlakes.com/wfp/purchasing/jsp/limitations.jsp

 

[stookeyfpe]

Am I missing something here? You are pulling a vacuum so no air is present.

Unless the vapor pressure of graphite presents a problem [I have access to vapor pressure data for certain solids], how will this provide enough flammable vapor to cause ignition in a O2 free environment?