CA2363232A1 - Use large composite fire-retardant blanket to extinguish fire, especially large and uncontrollable fire - Google Patents
Use large composite fire-retardant blanket to extinguish fire, especially large and uncontrollable fire Download PDFInfo
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- CA2363232A1 CA2363232A1 CA 2363232 CA2363232A CA2363232A1 CA 2363232 A1 CA2363232 A1 CA 2363232A1 CA 2363232 CA2363232 CA 2363232 CA 2363232 A CA2363232 A CA 2363232A CA 2363232 A1 CA2363232 A1 CA 2363232A1
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- A—HUMAN NECESSITIES
- A62—LIFE-SAVING; FIRE-FIGHTING
- A62C—FIRE-FIGHTING
- A62C3/00—Fire prevention, containment or extinguishing specially adapted for particular objects or places
- A62C3/02—Fire prevention, containment or extinguishing specially adapted for particular objects or places for area conflagrations, e.g. forest fires, subterranean fires
- A62C3/0257—Fire curtains, blankets, walls, fences
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- A—HUMAN NECESSITIES
- A62—LIFE-SAVING; FIRE-FIGHTING
- A62C—FIRE-FIGHTING
- A62C8/00—Hand tools or accessories specially adapted for fire-fighting, e.g. tool boxes
- A62C8/06—Fire-blankets
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Abstract
The tragic collapse of World Trade Center on Sept 11, 2001, revealed the incapability of human against large-scale fire. With the method of this patent, the scene of fire fighters holding nozzles jetting out fire extinguish liquid while the fire keeps on burning will disappear. By realizing that when materials burn they consume thousands or more times of air in volume, a new fire fighting method is proposed, which use a fire-retardant airtight blanket to block fresh air from refilling the combustion space so that oxygen in the combustion space will soon be depleted by combustion reaction and smoke squeezing effect. Details are also described on how to form a large-scale fire blanket by composing smaller blanket unit, on how to deploy the blanket over a fire site. This fire fighting method is especially suitable for large and uncontrollable fires, which could be house, building, boat, car, plant, forest fires etc.
Description
Description of the invention The primary fire-fighting method has been projecting fire-extinguishing liquid such as water, water mixed with foam forming agent or various other liquid/solid agent onto fire site. Fire blanket has also been proposed for extinguishing very small fire in its initial phase or as protection shield for human or object. (Canadian Patent: 983439, 1243480 and 2262850).
The method of projecting fire-extinguishing agent onto fire site is not very effective against large-scale fire, since it takes a lot of time to scan the whole fire site, and sometime the burning point are blocked by obstacles or are hard to locate. It is said that the collapse of the World Trade Center Towers is due to a prolonged burning (over l hour), which weakened the steal structure of the towers. And we often hear that somewhere a forest fire get widespread and uncontrollable. Just a few days before I wrote this patent, I saw consecutive fire catastrophes from news on TV. In one case a chemical plant caught fire, huge flame and smoke leaping to sky, and what was worse was that there was poison gas and the residents had to be emergently evacuated from that region (Sep 16,2001, CTV news). In a more recent instance (Nov 12, 2001), big airliner crashed into a residential area in New York City and huge fire broke out.
Fire blanket has also been proposed to be used for extinguishing very small fire in its initial phase, but existing method maintain a direct and tight cover of burning region, i.e. the burning objects are tightly wrapped or covered by the blanket, so no or very little air is left for further combustion. Furthermore the previously proposed fire blankets are targeted for a single person's use.
Either it has not been realized that it takes thousands or more times of air in volume when material burns, or this realization has simply not been considered in the context of fire fighting. Thus, by using a fire-retardant airtight blanket to block fresh air from refilling the combustion space, existing oxygen in the combustion space will soon be depleted by combustion reaction and smoke squeezing effect (to be explained soon). So even though a very large space of air is covered under the fire blanket, it's still very effective to use fire blanket, as long as no or very little fresh air can refill the combustion space. This means it is possible to use fire blanket against large-scale fire such as building fire, forest fire, car fire, plant fire and boat fire, etc., in which cases there is normally a large volume of air wrapped/covered under the fire blanket. It is the object of this patent to describe various aspects in using fire blanket to smother said fires.
Smoke squeezing effect is the effect that smoke or hotter air push out colder fresher air from combustion space. During combustion, oxygen is dissipated while smoke (including carbon dioxide) is generated, but normally the amount of smoke in volume generated is larger than the mount of oxygen dissipated, especially considering that smoke are hotter gas and take up more volume than colder air, and during combustion, colder air also get hotter, these hotter gases are lighter and will rise to upper space under the cover of fire blanket and since the blanket is airtight, so colder air will be squeezed out of combustion space from the unsealed leak at bottom of the blanket coverage.
To illustrate the principle of this invention, i.e., it takes thousands or more times of air in volume when material burns, in this paragraph, I take several kinds of material, and give an estimate on how many times of air in volume is required for full combustion of these materials. First let's take gasoline, the normal air/fuel weight ratio for gasoline is 14.7:1 in an ideal situation, assuming that the density of gasoline is 0.6 g/cm~, and average gram molecule weight of air is 14.4 g, then air/fuel volume ratio is 13300, i.e. one liter of gasoline needs 13.3 m3 of air for full combustion.
Taking into consideration the smoke squeezing effect, approximately 26 m; of air is required to burn one liter of gasoline. Second, let's take wood, wood is a complex material, but for purpose of estimation, I use C6H1206 to represent it, and assuming a density of 0.9 g/cm3, then 1 liter of wood need 6.72 m; of air to burn if smoke squeezing effect is also taken into consideration. Last, in the case of coal, assume a density of 1.5 g/cmj for coal, then 1 liter of coal needs 28 m3 of air to burn if smoke squeezing effect is also taken into consideration.
Embodiments of this invention are described hereinafter in conjunction with the drawing attached hereto, wherein:
Figure 1 is a plane view of the surface of the composed fire blanket that is not facing fire. The composition is through blanket units overlapped column by column and row by row. Said blanket unit is an elongated rectangle, every second columns of blankets are offset along column direction.
We hereafter refer to column direction as longitude direction interchangeably, and refer to row direction as latitude direction interchangeably.
Figure 2 is also a plane view of the surface of the composed fire blanket that is not facing fire.
Here the blanket unit is in square shape, and there is no offset along both row direction and column direction.
Figure 3a is the section view of one method to affix the fastening strip 3 on the blanket unit to strengthening rope. Here one half of strip 3 has hooks, the other half has loops.
Figure 3b is the section view of another method to affix the fastening strip 3 on blanket unit to strengthening rope. Here one surface of strip 3 has hooks, the other has loops. Preferably, the upper surface, that is the surface adjacent to the strengthening rope, is hook side.
And the back surface, that is the surface adjacent to the blanket, is loop side.
Figure 4 shows the region 4 of figure 1 and 2, it shows a small leak 5 which collectively can be detrimental to airtight property of the composite fire blanket. The edges are sewn with Velcro fastener so they can conveniently be joined together.
Figure 5 shows the region 4 of figure 1 and 2, here the blanket unit is split into two layers at one of its longitude edge, so that the upper layer can cover the small leak 5, this is expected to significantly reduce air leak and enhance airtight property of the composite fire blanket.
Figure 6 shows the section view of another joining arrangement at the overlapping edge of blanket units, I a and 1 b are blanket units laid out side by side, 6 are hooks iof Velcro, 7 are loops of Velcro.
Figure 7a show the section view of another joining arrangement at the overlapping edge of blanket units, 1 a and 1 b are blanket units laid out side by side, here press studs are used to fasten the overlapping edge. Material 8 can be a fuzzy open weave fabric or wool-like substance, an insulating material, an elastic filling material, or the like. The fill material then acts as an air block or seal between the overlapping blanket units.
Figure 8 is the diagram showing the deployment of fire blanket.
Figure 1 is a plane view of the surface of the composed fire blanket that is not facing fire. It shows that the blanket units comprising the large composite blanket are in elongated rectangle shape.
This large composite blanket is formed by first joining blanket units into columns, and then these columns are again joined together to form said large composite blanket. These blanket units overlap in region 2. The blankets unit are fastened together and sealed at 2. The fastening method can be Velcro type or press-stud. If press-stud is used to join the overlapped blanket units, then the joining will not be airtight without further measure being taken. Figure 7 shows a method that can seal the leak between the joining blanket units if press-stud is used to join the blanket units. Material 8 in Fig 7 can be a fuzzy open weave fabric or wool-like substance, an insulating material, an elastic filling material, or the like. The fill material then acts as an air block or seal between the overlapping blanket units. Material 8 can be coated, affixed, or sewn to the blanket unit.
Press-studs are evenly distributed along the overlapping edge, and all these press-stud are surrounded by material 8. Region 4 in Fig. 1 is the region where 3 layers of blanket unit overlap, this region can be a source of air leakage, even though Velcro or method as shown in Fig 7 are used to join the blanket units, this problem is shown in Fig 4. Using the arrangement of Fig 5 or Fig 6 for the joining of blanket units between columns of blanket units can greatly reduce the air leakage in region 4. The joining of blanket units between rows of blanket unit can still assume a simple form where one blanket is directly overlapped and joined and sealed to its adjacent blanket unit.
Besides the basic joining method of hook and loop of Velcro or press-stud, other joining method can also be used provided that method is convenient, and can be made or arranged to eliminate the leakage at the joining.
Method 5 is preferred way of joining columns of blanket units than method 6.
Strip 3 in Fig. l is a strip of fabric with suitable stress strength sewn to the blanket unit, Strips of 3 are evenly distributed on blanket unit, both in longitude and latitude direction. High strength ropes are laid along strip 3 and fastened by strip 3 to the fire blanket units, these ropes form a structural supporting network, since it is not anticipated that the joining at region 2 between adjacent blanket units are strong enough to surpass the extreme case of tensile stress strength requirement, strip 3 plus a network of ropes fastened to strip 3 provide the means to increase the tensile stress strength of the whole composite blanket to such a level if necessary.
From the foregoing description, it can be easily inferred what a blanket unit is like if the joining method is Velcro and the joining between adjacent columns of blanket units is made as in Fig. 5.
There will be a strip of loops along the latitude side (shorter side) on the back surface (away from fire), a strip of hooks along the opposing side on the front surface (facing the fire). Along one longitude side (longer side) there will be hooks strip on both front surface (facing the fire) and back surface of the blanket unit, along another longitude side opposing just said longitude side, the blanket unit split into two layer, the split extends from the edge inwardly only to the extent of Velcro strip at the opposing longitude side, this split is meant to be just enough to wrap the opposing side of the adjacent blanket column (Since all columns are identical). There should be a hook strip on each of the two surfaces that make up the split, these hook strips will affix the loop strips on the opposing longitude side if it is inserted into the split.
Figure 2 is very similar to Figure 1, except that here the blanket unit is a square, and there is no offset along any direction.
It is preferable if different colors or symbols are printed on the surfaces of the blanket unit to distinguish them and to make it easier for people to layout the blanket units and combine them to form a large composite fire blanket.
Various materials have been proposed for fire retardant purpose or specially for fire blanket purpose. 1t is not difficult to find a material that can endure a temperature of 1000 degree C or above.
For the present application, the material should preferably have a multiplayer structure, where the first layer that is directly facing the fire will probably be a coating layer which has very good fire retardant property. The next layer will probably be some kind of inorganic fabric layer, and then a layer of strengthening fabric such as polymer which has both good high temperature stability and a high fabric strength. It is to be noted that if the strip 3 or the Velcro hook and loop are sewn to the blanket, the needle hole might degrade the airtight property of the blanket, thus it may be preferably to put some coating layer onto the blanket after the strip 3 and fastener along blanket edge is fixed to the blanket. It is suggested to refer to other patents for more information on fire retardant material or fire blanket material.
Water is often used in fire-retardant material to enhance fire-resistance, if water is used, air-impermeable property will also be improved. A special kind of vehicle or helicopter can be used to sprinkle water onto the fire blanket.
The tensile stress can be as large as several hundred kg per meter along a horizontal section of the blanket material, if the material as long as 100 meter is hung, and assuming a density of lkg/m2.
The blanket itself can be strong enough to endure the stress, but the joining part at the overlapping edge of blanket units are not expected to be as strong, so a strip of fastener 3 is sewn or glued to the blanket material, the strip 3 will wrap around a rope that is used to undertake said stress. The strips 3 and the wrapped-in ropes are evenly distributed across the blanket surface, so the stress undertaken by the ropes is also divided by the number of strips/ropes. In the extreme case of 100 meter long blanket, the stress undertaken by a single rope will not surpass 1000 kg, this is within the range of modern hi-tech fabric rope's strength. The joining strength between the strip 3 and the blanket and the joining strength between the rope and strip 3 need only to surpass the weight of a single blanket unit. It is also to be noted that the longitude ropes and the latitude ropes form a network of rope, the intersection of ropes should be better fixed so that the cell shape of the rope network will not change, thus provide a topologically stable supporting network for the composing blanket units. A special kind of clamp can be used to fasten two crossing ropes at their intersection.
As said in previous paragraph, the primary consideration of using a fastener strip 3 and rope is that the joining strength at the overlapping edge 2 of blanket units are not strong enough to support the extreme case of very large composite blanket (total side length at 100m magnitude), in which case the tensile stress can be several hundreds kg per meter along the edge.
However, the strength of this joining can also be increased by other methods, e.g. by increase the number of layers involved in Velcro joining, or by using other very strong fastening method, or by providing additional other means of joining. If the joining strength at the edge of the blanket units is sufficient for the specific case (e.g. a small fire site), then the use of ropes for strengthening the joining can be omitted.
Moreover if it is anticipated that the possible tensile stress will never surpass both the joining strength of edge and the tensile strength of the blanket material, then the strip 3 can be totally dismissed.
A further improvement on fire extinguishing effect can be obtained by sprinkling water through a passage in the blanket layers. The water is better sprinkled into small water jet or drop with high speed, these water will vaporize due to the high temperature underneath the fire blanket, this has two effects, one is that it lowers the temperature and helps to shorten the time after which the fire blanket can be removed, the other effect is that water vapor will also squeeze out air, this will greatly help to extinguish the fire. The passage through which said sprinkler pass through can be made on-site or pre-made, regardless which approach is adopted, care must be taken to preserve airtight at the passage through the blanket layers. If the passages are pre-made, then they should be approximately evenly distribute on the fire blanket, also all the passages should be sealed until it is to be used to pass the water sprinkler. The passage should also be Ere-resistive. The present patent do not touch on this subject and just maintain that any state of the art technology to make an airtight passage through a layer of something can be used provided that the material directly exposed to fire should be fire resistant, however if on-site passage approach is adopted, this requirement can be loosened since these passage will pass through water which will keep the temperature much lower locally to the passage. Before the blanket is put on to fire site, the water passages can be fixed with sprinklers and the sprinklers can be interconnected with water tubes which form a water supply system, so that after the blanket is put on fire site, only the main water pipe is needed to be connected with water source. Clearly the water tubes leading to the sprinklers can be quite heavy when water is being passed through and are presumably better fixed to the blanket or to the strips/ropes used to strength/protect the joining of blanket units.
if manufacturing technology allows, a very large fire blanket can also be directly utilized instead of composing a large composite blanket from smaller blanket units. As mentioned beforehand, it is clear that without the understanding as explained in this patent, such a large blanket could not be possibly imagined of any use. For such large blanket, it is clear that it would be easy to manipulate if fasteners are fixed along its edges. Large blanket can be folded while in storage or during transportation, and have one advantage over using smaller blanket units to compose a large blanket, i.e. it save the time that is critical in fire fighting to compose a large blanket from smaller blanket units. Using blanket unit to compose into large blanket is better than using a single large blanket, in that it's easier to make, more adaptive, easier to store and transport smaller blanket units, and if one unit is worn out, it can simply be recycled or thrown away, unlike the case for large blanket where one single hole may render the entire large blanket useless, which is economically inferior. The preferred dimension of blanket units should be about 3m * l Om.
The deployment of very large fire blanket should also be considered. Taking an extreme case, assuming a blanket as large as 100* 100 M', the force of wind can be very large, assume a common case of 10 km/h wind speed, the force of wind on the blanket can be as big as 18 ton, and the force is proportional to the square of wind speed. It is both dangerous and unwieldy to manipulate such a large blanket even with a heavy load helicopter or a group of these helicopters. The deployment process shown in figure 8 is devised to reduce the effect of wind and difficulty to manipulate under wind condition. First the composite blanket is folded, preferably along longitude direction, and lifted up, moved close to the fire site, and then gradually lowered down to optimal height, then the upper end is fixed ( ropes 9), and the lower part (hoisted by ropes 10) is gradually lowered. In the mean time, ropes 12 which is fastened to the lower part are lowered to ground and fastened to installation 11. The direction should be chosen such that wind is parallel to the blanket surface. With the help of ropes 12 and installation 11, the lower part are finally lowered to the ground, then the lifter(maybe a helicopter or a group of helicopter) lift and move the upper end towards the fire side, and gradually lowered to cover the entire fire site, the upper end is completely release and should be fixed to ground with some anchor/installation, maybe similar to 11.
The fire fighting method as described by this patent is especially suitable for large scale and conventionally uncontrollable fires, such as house, building, boat, car, plant, forest fire. However it is not suitable if people are suspected to be alive in the fire site.
With this detailed description of the specific design used to illustrate the preferred embodiment of the present invention and the operation thereof, it will be obvious to those skilled in the art that various modifications changes, variations, and substitutions can be made in the plane layout of composing a large blanket from blanket units or sectional structure of blanket unit layer shown, in the shape and size of blanket unit, in the fastening and sealing means used to join adjacent blanket units at their overlapping edges, in the fastening of strengthening strip to the blanket units, in the interconnection and joining of the strengthening strips with each other to form a structural supporting network for the composite blanket, and the like without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention which is limited by the appended claims.
The method of projecting fire-extinguishing agent onto fire site is not very effective against large-scale fire, since it takes a lot of time to scan the whole fire site, and sometime the burning point are blocked by obstacles or are hard to locate. It is said that the collapse of the World Trade Center Towers is due to a prolonged burning (over l hour), which weakened the steal structure of the towers. And we often hear that somewhere a forest fire get widespread and uncontrollable. Just a few days before I wrote this patent, I saw consecutive fire catastrophes from news on TV. In one case a chemical plant caught fire, huge flame and smoke leaping to sky, and what was worse was that there was poison gas and the residents had to be emergently evacuated from that region (Sep 16,2001, CTV news). In a more recent instance (Nov 12, 2001), big airliner crashed into a residential area in New York City and huge fire broke out.
Fire blanket has also been proposed to be used for extinguishing very small fire in its initial phase, but existing method maintain a direct and tight cover of burning region, i.e. the burning objects are tightly wrapped or covered by the blanket, so no or very little air is left for further combustion. Furthermore the previously proposed fire blankets are targeted for a single person's use.
Either it has not been realized that it takes thousands or more times of air in volume when material burns, or this realization has simply not been considered in the context of fire fighting. Thus, by using a fire-retardant airtight blanket to block fresh air from refilling the combustion space, existing oxygen in the combustion space will soon be depleted by combustion reaction and smoke squeezing effect (to be explained soon). So even though a very large space of air is covered under the fire blanket, it's still very effective to use fire blanket, as long as no or very little fresh air can refill the combustion space. This means it is possible to use fire blanket against large-scale fire such as building fire, forest fire, car fire, plant fire and boat fire, etc., in which cases there is normally a large volume of air wrapped/covered under the fire blanket. It is the object of this patent to describe various aspects in using fire blanket to smother said fires.
Smoke squeezing effect is the effect that smoke or hotter air push out colder fresher air from combustion space. During combustion, oxygen is dissipated while smoke (including carbon dioxide) is generated, but normally the amount of smoke in volume generated is larger than the mount of oxygen dissipated, especially considering that smoke are hotter gas and take up more volume than colder air, and during combustion, colder air also get hotter, these hotter gases are lighter and will rise to upper space under the cover of fire blanket and since the blanket is airtight, so colder air will be squeezed out of combustion space from the unsealed leak at bottom of the blanket coverage.
To illustrate the principle of this invention, i.e., it takes thousands or more times of air in volume when material burns, in this paragraph, I take several kinds of material, and give an estimate on how many times of air in volume is required for full combustion of these materials. First let's take gasoline, the normal air/fuel weight ratio for gasoline is 14.7:1 in an ideal situation, assuming that the density of gasoline is 0.6 g/cm~, and average gram molecule weight of air is 14.4 g, then air/fuel volume ratio is 13300, i.e. one liter of gasoline needs 13.3 m3 of air for full combustion.
Taking into consideration the smoke squeezing effect, approximately 26 m; of air is required to burn one liter of gasoline. Second, let's take wood, wood is a complex material, but for purpose of estimation, I use C6H1206 to represent it, and assuming a density of 0.9 g/cm3, then 1 liter of wood need 6.72 m; of air to burn if smoke squeezing effect is also taken into consideration. Last, in the case of coal, assume a density of 1.5 g/cmj for coal, then 1 liter of coal needs 28 m3 of air to burn if smoke squeezing effect is also taken into consideration.
Embodiments of this invention are described hereinafter in conjunction with the drawing attached hereto, wherein:
Figure 1 is a plane view of the surface of the composed fire blanket that is not facing fire. The composition is through blanket units overlapped column by column and row by row. Said blanket unit is an elongated rectangle, every second columns of blankets are offset along column direction.
We hereafter refer to column direction as longitude direction interchangeably, and refer to row direction as latitude direction interchangeably.
Figure 2 is also a plane view of the surface of the composed fire blanket that is not facing fire.
Here the blanket unit is in square shape, and there is no offset along both row direction and column direction.
Figure 3a is the section view of one method to affix the fastening strip 3 on the blanket unit to strengthening rope. Here one half of strip 3 has hooks, the other half has loops.
Figure 3b is the section view of another method to affix the fastening strip 3 on blanket unit to strengthening rope. Here one surface of strip 3 has hooks, the other has loops. Preferably, the upper surface, that is the surface adjacent to the strengthening rope, is hook side.
And the back surface, that is the surface adjacent to the blanket, is loop side.
Figure 4 shows the region 4 of figure 1 and 2, it shows a small leak 5 which collectively can be detrimental to airtight property of the composite fire blanket. The edges are sewn with Velcro fastener so they can conveniently be joined together.
Figure 5 shows the region 4 of figure 1 and 2, here the blanket unit is split into two layers at one of its longitude edge, so that the upper layer can cover the small leak 5, this is expected to significantly reduce air leak and enhance airtight property of the composite fire blanket.
Figure 6 shows the section view of another joining arrangement at the overlapping edge of blanket units, I a and 1 b are blanket units laid out side by side, 6 are hooks iof Velcro, 7 are loops of Velcro.
Figure 7a show the section view of another joining arrangement at the overlapping edge of blanket units, 1 a and 1 b are blanket units laid out side by side, here press studs are used to fasten the overlapping edge. Material 8 can be a fuzzy open weave fabric or wool-like substance, an insulating material, an elastic filling material, or the like. The fill material then acts as an air block or seal between the overlapping blanket units.
Figure 8 is the diagram showing the deployment of fire blanket.
Figure 1 is a plane view of the surface of the composed fire blanket that is not facing fire. It shows that the blanket units comprising the large composite blanket are in elongated rectangle shape.
This large composite blanket is formed by first joining blanket units into columns, and then these columns are again joined together to form said large composite blanket. These blanket units overlap in region 2. The blankets unit are fastened together and sealed at 2. The fastening method can be Velcro type or press-stud. If press-stud is used to join the overlapped blanket units, then the joining will not be airtight without further measure being taken. Figure 7 shows a method that can seal the leak between the joining blanket units if press-stud is used to join the blanket units. Material 8 in Fig 7 can be a fuzzy open weave fabric or wool-like substance, an insulating material, an elastic filling material, or the like. The fill material then acts as an air block or seal between the overlapping blanket units. Material 8 can be coated, affixed, or sewn to the blanket unit.
Press-studs are evenly distributed along the overlapping edge, and all these press-stud are surrounded by material 8. Region 4 in Fig. 1 is the region where 3 layers of blanket unit overlap, this region can be a source of air leakage, even though Velcro or method as shown in Fig 7 are used to join the blanket units, this problem is shown in Fig 4. Using the arrangement of Fig 5 or Fig 6 for the joining of blanket units between columns of blanket units can greatly reduce the air leakage in region 4. The joining of blanket units between rows of blanket unit can still assume a simple form where one blanket is directly overlapped and joined and sealed to its adjacent blanket unit.
Besides the basic joining method of hook and loop of Velcro or press-stud, other joining method can also be used provided that method is convenient, and can be made or arranged to eliminate the leakage at the joining.
Method 5 is preferred way of joining columns of blanket units than method 6.
Strip 3 in Fig. l is a strip of fabric with suitable stress strength sewn to the blanket unit, Strips of 3 are evenly distributed on blanket unit, both in longitude and latitude direction. High strength ropes are laid along strip 3 and fastened by strip 3 to the fire blanket units, these ropes form a structural supporting network, since it is not anticipated that the joining at region 2 between adjacent blanket units are strong enough to surpass the extreme case of tensile stress strength requirement, strip 3 plus a network of ropes fastened to strip 3 provide the means to increase the tensile stress strength of the whole composite blanket to such a level if necessary.
From the foregoing description, it can be easily inferred what a blanket unit is like if the joining method is Velcro and the joining between adjacent columns of blanket units is made as in Fig. 5.
There will be a strip of loops along the latitude side (shorter side) on the back surface (away from fire), a strip of hooks along the opposing side on the front surface (facing the fire). Along one longitude side (longer side) there will be hooks strip on both front surface (facing the fire) and back surface of the blanket unit, along another longitude side opposing just said longitude side, the blanket unit split into two layer, the split extends from the edge inwardly only to the extent of Velcro strip at the opposing longitude side, this split is meant to be just enough to wrap the opposing side of the adjacent blanket column (Since all columns are identical). There should be a hook strip on each of the two surfaces that make up the split, these hook strips will affix the loop strips on the opposing longitude side if it is inserted into the split.
Figure 2 is very similar to Figure 1, except that here the blanket unit is a square, and there is no offset along any direction.
It is preferable if different colors or symbols are printed on the surfaces of the blanket unit to distinguish them and to make it easier for people to layout the blanket units and combine them to form a large composite fire blanket.
Various materials have been proposed for fire retardant purpose or specially for fire blanket purpose. 1t is not difficult to find a material that can endure a temperature of 1000 degree C or above.
For the present application, the material should preferably have a multiplayer structure, where the first layer that is directly facing the fire will probably be a coating layer which has very good fire retardant property. The next layer will probably be some kind of inorganic fabric layer, and then a layer of strengthening fabric such as polymer which has both good high temperature stability and a high fabric strength. It is to be noted that if the strip 3 or the Velcro hook and loop are sewn to the blanket, the needle hole might degrade the airtight property of the blanket, thus it may be preferably to put some coating layer onto the blanket after the strip 3 and fastener along blanket edge is fixed to the blanket. It is suggested to refer to other patents for more information on fire retardant material or fire blanket material.
Water is often used in fire-retardant material to enhance fire-resistance, if water is used, air-impermeable property will also be improved. A special kind of vehicle or helicopter can be used to sprinkle water onto the fire blanket.
The tensile stress can be as large as several hundred kg per meter along a horizontal section of the blanket material, if the material as long as 100 meter is hung, and assuming a density of lkg/m2.
The blanket itself can be strong enough to endure the stress, but the joining part at the overlapping edge of blanket units are not expected to be as strong, so a strip of fastener 3 is sewn or glued to the blanket material, the strip 3 will wrap around a rope that is used to undertake said stress. The strips 3 and the wrapped-in ropes are evenly distributed across the blanket surface, so the stress undertaken by the ropes is also divided by the number of strips/ropes. In the extreme case of 100 meter long blanket, the stress undertaken by a single rope will not surpass 1000 kg, this is within the range of modern hi-tech fabric rope's strength. The joining strength between the strip 3 and the blanket and the joining strength between the rope and strip 3 need only to surpass the weight of a single blanket unit. It is also to be noted that the longitude ropes and the latitude ropes form a network of rope, the intersection of ropes should be better fixed so that the cell shape of the rope network will not change, thus provide a topologically stable supporting network for the composing blanket units. A special kind of clamp can be used to fasten two crossing ropes at their intersection.
As said in previous paragraph, the primary consideration of using a fastener strip 3 and rope is that the joining strength at the overlapping edge 2 of blanket units are not strong enough to support the extreme case of very large composite blanket (total side length at 100m magnitude), in which case the tensile stress can be several hundreds kg per meter along the edge.
However, the strength of this joining can also be increased by other methods, e.g. by increase the number of layers involved in Velcro joining, or by using other very strong fastening method, or by providing additional other means of joining. If the joining strength at the edge of the blanket units is sufficient for the specific case (e.g. a small fire site), then the use of ropes for strengthening the joining can be omitted.
Moreover if it is anticipated that the possible tensile stress will never surpass both the joining strength of edge and the tensile strength of the blanket material, then the strip 3 can be totally dismissed.
A further improvement on fire extinguishing effect can be obtained by sprinkling water through a passage in the blanket layers. The water is better sprinkled into small water jet or drop with high speed, these water will vaporize due to the high temperature underneath the fire blanket, this has two effects, one is that it lowers the temperature and helps to shorten the time after which the fire blanket can be removed, the other effect is that water vapor will also squeeze out air, this will greatly help to extinguish the fire. The passage through which said sprinkler pass through can be made on-site or pre-made, regardless which approach is adopted, care must be taken to preserve airtight at the passage through the blanket layers. If the passages are pre-made, then they should be approximately evenly distribute on the fire blanket, also all the passages should be sealed until it is to be used to pass the water sprinkler. The passage should also be Ere-resistive. The present patent do not touch on this subject and just maintain that any state of the art technology to make an airtight passage through a layer of something can be used provided that the material directly exposed to fire should be fire resistant, however if on-site passage approach is adopted, this requirement can be loosened since these passage will pass through water which will keep the temperature much lower locally to the passage. Before the blanket is put on to fire site, the water passages can be fixed with sprinklers and the sprinklers can be interconnected with water tubes which form a water supply system, so that after the blanket is put on fire site, only the main water pipe is needed to be connected with water source. Clearly the water tubes leading to the sprinklers can be quite heavy when water is being passed through and are presumably better fixed to the blanket or to the strips/ropes used to strength/protect the joining of blanket units.
if manufacturing technology allows, a very large fire blanket can also be directly utilized instead of composing a large composite blanket from smaller blanket units. As mentioned beforehand, it is clear that without the understanding as explained in this patent, such a large blanket could not be possibly imagined of any use. For such large blanket, it is clear that it would be easy to manipulate if fasteners are fixed along its edges. Large blanket can be folded while in storage or during transportation, and have one advantage over using smaller blanket units to compose a large blanket, i.e. it save the time that is critical in fire fighting to compose a large blanket from smaller blanket units. Using blanket unit to compose into large blanket is better than using a single large blanket, in that it's easier to make, more adaptive, easier to store and transport smaller blanket units, and if one unit is worn out, it can simply be recycled or thrown away, unlike the case for large blanket where one single hole may render the entire large blanket useless, which is economically inferior. The preferred dimension of blanket units should be about 3m * l Om.
The deployment of very large fire blanket should also be considered. Taking an extreme case, assuming a blanket as large as 100* 100 M', the force of wind can be very large, assume a common case of 10 km/h wind speed, the force of wind on the blanket can be as big as 18 ton, and the force is proportional to the square of wind speed. It is both dangerous and unwieldy to manipulate such a large blanket even with a heavy load helicopter or a group of these helicopters. The deployment process shown in figure 8 is devised to reduce the effect of wind and difficulty to manipulate under wind condition. First the composite blanket is folded, preferably along longitude direction, and lifted up, moved close to the fire site, and then gradually lowered down to optimal height, then the upper end is fixed ( ropes 9), and the lower part (hoisted by ropes 10) is gradually lowered. In the mean time, ropes 12 which is fastened to the lower part are lowered to ground and fastened to installation 11. The direction should be chosen such that wind is parallel to the blanket surface. With the help of ropes 12 and installation 11, the lower part are finally lowered to the ground, then the lifter(maybe a helicopter or a group of helicopter) lift and move the upper end towards the fire side, and gradually lowered to cover the entire fire site, the upper end is completely release and should be fixed to ground with some anchor/installation, maybe similar to 11.
The fire fighting method as described by this patent is especially suitable for large scale and conventionally uncontrollable fires, such as house, building, boat, car, plant, forest fire. However it is not suitable if people are suspected to be alive in the fire site.
With this detailed description of the specific design used to illustrate the preferred embodiment of the present invention and the operation thereof, it will be obvious to those skilled in the art that various modifications changes, variations, and substitutions can be made in the plane layout of composing a large blanket from blanket units or sectional structure of blanket unit layer shown, in the shape and size of blanket unit, in the fastening and sealing means used to join adjacent blanket units at their overlapping edges, in the fastening of strengthening strip to the blanket units, in the interconnection and joining of the strengthening strips with each other to form a structural supporting network for the composite blanket, and the like without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention which is limited by the appended claims.
Claims (7)
1. Any fire blanket which is larger than 30 m2, wherein the material of said blanket is fire retardant and airtight
2. Said blanket of claim 1, wherein there are strips of material evenly distributed over the surface of said blanket, along both longitude and latitude directions, and said strips of material are high strength material and are for the purpose of strengthening the blanket or providing a handle for manipulating the blanket, and said strips of material may be glued to, sewn to, or by any other state of the art means fixed to said blanket.
3. A fire blanket, wherein the material of said blanket is fire retardant and airtight, with strips of fastener along its edges, wherein said blanket can be in elongate rectangle shape or square shape.
Said fastener can be Velcro or press-stud or any other state of the art fastener means, which will provide a reasonably strong and airtight joining, when blankets of this type are laid out side by side and partly overlapped along their common borders, said fasteners can then be applied to form an airtight joining so that these blankets will form a large airtight composite blanket.
Said fastener can be Velcro or press-stud or any other state of the art fastener means, which will provide a reasonably strong and airtight joining, when blankets of this type are laid out side by side and partly overlapped along their common borders, said fasteners can then be applied to form an airtight joining so that these blankets will form a large airtight composite blanket.
4. Said blanket of claim 3, wherein there are strips of material evenly distributed on the surface of said blanket, along both longitude and latitude directions, and said strips of material are high strength material and are for the purpose of strengthening the blanket or providing a handle for manipulating the blanket, and said strips of material may be glued to, sewn to, or by any other state of the art means fixed to said blanket. When blankets of this type are laid out side by side to form a composite blanket, said strip of material can then be joined together at common border to similar strip of other blanket of same type, thus form a high strength supporting interconnected network to provide a protection frame for the composite blanket against stress force at least as big as blanket weight. Said joining of said strengthening strip of material can be any state of the art joining method that is convenient and of high strength.
5. Said blanket of claim 4, wherein said strips of fastener along its edges has the characteristic of strip of material for strengthening purpose of claim 4 at the same time retaining its own characteristic as defined in claim 3, thus an extra set of strips of material for strengthening purpose is eliminated.
6. Said blanket of claim 3, wherein there are strips of material evenly distributed on the surface of said blanket, along both longitude and latitude directions, and said strips of material may be glued to, sewn to, or by any other state of the art means fixed to said blanket. Said strip of material in turn has means to affix to rope which is laid along said strip of material. When blankets of this type are laid out side by side to form a composite blanket, ropes are laid out along said strips of material and across the whole composite blanket, said ropes are then affixed to said strips of material and joined with crossing ropes to form a high strength supporting interconnected network, thus provide a protection frame for the composite blanket against stress force primarily caused by blanket weight. Said affixing method between the rope and the strip of material can be any state of the art affixing means like Velcro etc. Said joining between ropes at their crossing can be any state of the art joining means.
7. Said blanket of claim 1,2,3,4,5, and 6, with passages distributed on the blanket or blanket unit, these passage are sealed normally and are made of fire retardant material.
Said passages are used to pass through. water sprinkler or water pipes through the blanket layer.
Said passages are always airtight regardless whether they are in sealed status or water pipes/sprinkler are passed through them.
Said passages are used to pass through. water sprinkler or water pipes through the blanket layer.
Said passages are always airtight regardless whether they are in sealed status or water pipes/sprinkler are passed through them.
Priority Applications (1)
| Application Number | Priority Date | Filing Date | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| CA 2363232 CA2363232A1 (en) | 2001-11-14 | 2001-11-14 | Use large composite fire-retardant blanket to extinguish fire, especially large and uncontrollable fire |
Applications Claiming Priority (1)
| Application Number | Priority Date | Filing Date | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| CA 2363232 CA2363232A1 (en) | 2001-11-14 | 2001-11-14 | Use large composite fire-retardant blanket to extinguish fire, especially large and uncontrollable fire |
Publications (1)
| Publication Number | Publication Date |
|---|---|
| CA2363232A1 true CA2363232A1 (en) | 2002-02-21 |
Family
ID=4170566
Family Applications (1)
| Application Number | Title | Priority Date | Filing Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| CA 2363232 Abandoned CA2363232A1 (en) | 2001-11-14 | 2001-11-14 | Use large composite fire-retardant blanket to extinguish fire, especially large and uncontrollable fire |
Country Status (1)
| Country | Link |
|---|---|
| CA (1) | CA2363232A1 (en) |
Cited By (4)
| Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| WO2006101974A1 (en) * | 2005-03-21 | 2006-09-28 | Fedex Corporation | Device for containing and/or suppressing a fire |
| EP1916021A1 (en) * | 2006-10-26 | 2008-04-30 | Goldfire Sprl | Fire blanket |
| CN106540392A (en) * | 2017-01-03 | 2017-03-29 | 曹伟 | Lifting fire smothering blanket fire fighting truck |
| GR20170100399A (en) * | 2017-09-04 | 2019-05-09 | Βασιλης Στεφανου Λινακης | Forest fire-extinguishing system with use of fire-proof big-sized blanket |
-
2001
- 2001-11-14 CA CA 2363232 patent/CA2363232A1/en not_active Abandoned
Cited By (9)
| Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| WO2006101974A1 (en) * | 2005-03-21 | 2006-09-28 | Fedex Corporation | Device for containing and/or suppressing a fire |
| JP2008532874A (en) * | 2005-03-21 | 2008-08-21 | フェデックス コーポレイション | Device for containing and / or calming a flame |
| JP2012110747A (en) * | 2005-03-21 | 2012-06-14 | Federal Express Corp | Device for containing and/or suppressing fire |
| CN101247860B (en) * | 2005-03-21 | 2012-10-10 | 联邦快递公司 | Device for containing and/or suppressing a fire |
| US8844641B2 (en) | 2005-03-21 | 2014-09-30 | Federal Express Corporation | Device for containing and/or suppressing a fire |
| EP1916021A1 (en) * | 2006-10-26 | 2008-04-30 | Goldfire Sprl | Fire blanket |
| WO2008049703A1 (en) * | 2006-10-26 | 2008-05-02 | Goldfire Sprl | Fire-proof cover |
| CN106540392A (en) * | 2017-01-03 | 2017-03-29 | 曹伟 | Lifting fire smothering blanket fire fighting truck |
| GR20170100399A (en) * | 2017-09-04 | 2019-05-09 | Βασιλης Στεφανου Λινακης | Forest fire-extinguishing system with use of fire-proof big-sized blanket |
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