LSH - Spacecraft Fire Safety

+ NASA Home
+ Glenn Home

-Fire Prevention

-Fire Detection

-Fire Suppression

-Fire Scenarios

-Forthcoming

-Multimedia

-What's New?

Spacecraft Fire Safety

Key Features of Fires in Low Gravity and Microgravity
(Freidman & Urban, 2000)

Property	Trend	Remarks
Ignition	Promoted	- Thermally stressed components can overheat rapidly - Partiuclate spills form flammable aerosals that persist for long periods of time - Burning plastics eject hot material randomly and violently

Flame Appearance	Altered	- In quiescent environments, flames are often symmetrical in shape and nearly invisible - Under low rates of imposed air flow, flames intensify and become bright and sooty

Flammability and Flame-Spread Rate; Quiescent Conditions	Increased, in some cases to match or exceed normal-gravity levels	- Low-rate ventilating flows stimulate low-gravity fires and greatly extend their flammability range and flame-spread rates - Freely propagating flames tend to spread toward the "wind," or into the oxygen source

Detection Signatures	NA	- Flames are often cooler and less radiant - Average size and range of soot particle sizes are greater - Combustion product nature and quantities are altered

FPDS Related Multimedia

Web Curator: Robert Derwae
NASA Official: Dr. Gary A. Ruff
Last Updated: June 23, 2005