Gregory E. Grimstad

This project involved assembly of the hardward and development of the software identified in ACES Phase 1 Concept Development contract study. The assembled system allows three critical stages in repsonding to an aircraft inflight smoke/fire event to be examined. These are (1) sensing (data gathering), (2) establishing the alerting criteria to maintain quick response while reducing false alarsm (data analysis), and (3) methods of providing assistance to the crew, bith flight deck and cabin, in rsponding to an inflight event.

Robert P. Garner, Ph.D

A cabin water spray system (CWSS) has been suggested as a means of attenuating the severity of smoke and fire commonly associated with aircraft accidents. All aspects of passenger and cabin safety must be considered when evaluating a new safety system or conecpt. The purposes of this report are to briefly review the pathophysiological changes occurring in the respiratory system as a result of thermal injury and to quantitatively estimate the risk of creating a more hazardous cabin environment by activation of a CWSS. Changes in the heat content of the cabin atmosphere resulting from CWSS activation were calculated using parameters consistent with current aircraft and proposals for CWSS design. The results suggest that only a very small volume of the aircraft cabin would have an increase in heat content that could result in thermal injury.

National Transportation Safety Board

This publication presents the record of aviation accidents involving revenue operations of U.S. Air Carriers including Commuter Air Carriers and on Demand Air Taxis for calendar year 1991.

The report is divided into three major sections according to the federal regulations under which the flight was conducted - 14 CFR 121, 125, 127. Scheduled 14 CFR 135, or Nonscheduled 14 CFR 135. In each section of the report tables are presented to describe the losses and characteristics of 1991 accidents to enable comparison with prior years.

Richard L. Smith

The purpose of this report is to describe the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s work to date relating to the general methodology being developed for the project Risk Analysis for the Fire Safety of Airline Passengers and the software being used to facilitate this methodology. The approach selected involved the use of influence diagrams. Therefore, a brief discussion of influence diagrams is given. The status of their application to the water mist system for passenger planes is given and the overall approach to carrying out the project is described. An example is included hat shows how the process works, but the case is fictional, not intended to be realistic.

Dung Do, Joseph Wright, Lawrence Hampton

Tests of the burn characteristics of a phenolic foam, under evaluation as a runway brake arrestor material, were conducted by the Fire Safety Branch of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Technical Center.

The purpose of these tests was to assess the fire propagation properties of phenolic foam when exposed to a free burning Jet A fuel fire and to determine the fire control time of phenolic foam immersed in a jet fuel fire when extinguished using 3-percent Aqueous Film Forming Foam (AFFF).

Three pool fire tests were conducted as follows: In the first and second tests, a 12-foot-square bed of phenolic foam. material was placed adjacent to a 35-foot-diameter jet fuel fire. This configuration resulted in ignition and flame propagation across to adjacent foam material, resulting in charring of over 30 percent of the exposed surface of the phenolic foam.

In the third test, the phenolic foam material was immersed in the jet fuel fire to determine ease of extinguishment using conventional AFFF agent. The fire control time was three times longer than when the phenolic foam material was absent. The extinguishing time was an order of magnitude higher than that without the foam.

In addition, the phenolic foam material was evaluated on the basis of FAA fire test requirements for cabin materials. These small-scale tests measured burn length, weight loss, and heat release rates of the foam material in accordance with Federal Aviation Regulation (FAR) 25.853. These results showed the foam material passed the burn test requirements.