RU2252050C2 - Fire extinguishing method - Google Patents

Abstract

FIELD: fire fighting equipment with the use of helicopters with rotary propellers, which create powerful descending air flow, particularly to extinguish forest fires.

SUBSTANCE: method involves suspending conical case with fire-extinguishing devices under helicopter and using powerful descending air flow produced by helicopter propellers. If necessary air flow may be mixed with mechanical particles (sand) or chemical additives for extinguishing fires. The case is produced of high-strength and light-weight material to provide case weight of not more than 2 tons.

EFFECT: possibility to use air flow going from helicopter propeller, reduced fuel consumption due to prevention of helicopter usage in shuttle mode, possibility of continuous fire extinguishing, increased helicopter park.

3 cl, 1 dwg

Description

The invention relates to forestry, to work mainly on extinguishing forest fires, and can be used to extinguish fires at industrial and civil facilities, if there are no people there.

Currently, large fires are extinguished using the most powerful equipment: airplanes, helicopters, etc., which, making shuttle flights, flood the fires with a huge amount of water.

To extinguish fires, helicopters must shuttle all the time to deliver water with high fuel consumption, if the reservoir is far away, and there are breaks between flights, and the forest burns continuously.

The method of extinguishing fires according to the patent of Russia No. 2130793, class. A 62 C 3/00, publ. 05/27/1999, providing for blowing off flames from hot bodies and objects.

The objective of the present invention is to extinguish forest or other fires by blowing off flames from burning bodies and objects with the help of a powerful vortex from a helicopter, like a tornado, due to the fact that air jets directed vertically to the ground from coaxially mounted helicopter screws fall into a suspension-collecting case, are twisted and rush to the ground. The powerful air jet created by helicopter propellers from engines with power over four thousand hp, for example, the KA-32 helicopter (1 p. 255), carries enormous kinetic energy, which will blow off, suppress fire flames without fail, and if added mechanical or other additives quenching and smoldering foci will be carried out immediately.

According to the invention, the method of extinguishing fires consists in extinguishing by a rotating stream of air from a rotor in the form of a tornado from a rotor of a helicopter, while the rotation and direction of air into the fire is carried out by a special removable conical body with devices for swirling air and accelerating it downward.

In addition, the removable housing is suspended or uncoupled using automatic couplings, and, if necessary, mechanical additives in the form of sand or chemical additives are added to the air stream.

The rotating ball of air from the powerful pressure of the coaxially rotating screws will have range, which will allow the helicopter not to decrease much. Thus, this method of supplying air will allow the most efficient use of a powerful jet of downward air created by the engines. Since the load on the helicopter (the weight of the cone, made of composite material, the body) will be much less than its carrying capacity, it can be loaded with additives in the form of dry sand and chemical reagents.

And if the helicopter is equipped with devices for automatic enveloping of terrain that allow flying at minimum altitudes of 5-15 meters (2, p. 5), and screws from composite materials (3, p. 20), then it will completely extinguish the flame of any forest fires, flying up to the edge of a huge cloud of smoke from ground and top fires, not afraid of collisions with any obstacle hidden inside or behind it.

The helicopter flies, so to speak, especially at low speeds, when extinguishing fires, in a cloud, more precisely, in the overflowing stream of air from its propellers. If you take the KA-32 helicopter, the volume of expelled air will be in the range of 100000-220000 m ³ / s!

If he descends into a fire to a certain height, this gigantic amount of air will disperse any powerful smoke, but he himself will still be in the clean descending air of his screws.

The pilot, being all the time in the clean air of his propellers, can flexibly maneuver in case of any lower and upper fires.

Figure 1 shows a device for implementing the method of extinguishing fires "Tornado". The device is made in the form of a cone, where item 1 is the upper collecting round wall of the body, item 2 is a spiral for swirling air, item 3 is the same in the tapering part of the body, item 4 is the Laval nozzle. Pos. 5 - a transparent part of the wall of the housing for an overview of the terrain. Pos.6 - automatic couplings. Pos.7 - stand with the bottom of the automatic coupler. Pos.8 - supporting the rack housing.

The process of extinguishing forest fires is as follows. The helicopter, having taken in the fuselage the necessary amount of sand or chemical additives (4-5 tons, if the KA-32 helicopter), sits on the body pos. 1 so that the upper half of the automatic coupler pos.6 is connected to the lower part of the automatic coupler mounted on the stand pos. 7. Air entering the housing at this time will exit through the lower part of the Laval nozzle due to the excess of the end face of the nozzle above the ground to the gap “B”. Then it flies to the beginning of the front line of the fire, dropping to a minimum height, directing the Smerch air vortex rotating at high speed - to burning trees, grass, branches. The air vortex will blow off intensively, knock down the flame. If smoldering logs come across (this can be set during secondary extinguishing), massive objects, etc., extinguish them with the addition of mechanical and chemical additives.

Technical and economic indicators of the proposed method of extinguishing forest or other fires will be significant for the following reasons:

1. A significant amount of fuel is saved due to the double use of the helicopter's power - for its flight and for extinguishing a fire, as well as due to the cancellation of its shuttle flights for water delivery.

2. Ensuring the continuity of extinguishing, especially forest fires, which will save hundreds of thousands of hectares of forest, especially in regions with a small number of water bodies.

3. High efficiency of extinguishing forest fires due to the turbulence of the downward flow of air with the addition, if necessary, of mechanical or chemical additives. A turbulence, in the form of “Tornado”, of air will bring down the flame of fires at high speed, which will allow the helicopter to continuously move along the front line of the fire.

Literature

1. A.N. Ponomarev, Soviet Aviation Designers, Military Publishing House, 1990, Moscow.

2. Newspaper “AiF”, No. 14, 2004, Moscow.

3. Newspaper “AiF”, No. 15, 2004, Moscow.

Claims (3)

 1. The method of extinguishing fires, characterized in that the extinguishing is carried out by rotating in the form of a tornado a stream of air from the rotors of the helicopter, while the rotation and direction of air into the fire is produced by a special removable conical body with devices for swirling air and accelerating it downward. 2. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that the removable housing is suspended or uncoupled using automatic couplings. 3. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that, if necessary, mechanical additives in the form of sand or chemical additives are added to the air stream.