Design Approaches for Oxygen Reduction Systems for Warehouse Storage Applications

Abstract

ABSTRACT Oxygen reduction systems (ORS) are protection systems, with a design protection objective to limit fire spread beyond the point of ignition. Research has shown that the prescriptive design methods, in VdS 3527, EN 16750, and ISO 20338, are not appropriate as prescriptive design methods as they result in insufficient protection levels. In this paper, two design approaches for ORS for warehouse applications have been developed to address the lack of robust design methods. One design approach was aimed at creating a robust prescriptive method for determination of design oxygen concentrations for ORS. Such a method needs to cover a vast majority of storage configurations and ignition sources. The need to consider intentional fires is also discussed in this paper, as these fires are common in warehouses. The prescriptive method is based on the limiting oxygen concentration for fire propagation (LOC FP ) determined by large‐scale testing performed by Factory Mutual Insurance Company (FM) complemented with a procedure using the Controlled Atmosphere Cone Calorimeter (CACC). The second design approach was aimed at creating a performance‐based design framework for specific applications. The framework is based on an in‐depth analysis of the stored goods, storage configuration, and possible ignition sources. If the specific application is comparable to the large‐scale test setup, and the combination of factors indicates favorable conditions potentially allowing an easement in the design concentration for the system compared to the prescriptive method, variation of the large‐scale testing is recommended to determine design oxygen concentrations. If the specific application is considerably different to the large‐scale test setup, by FM, a completely new large‐scale test needs to be developed to determine design concentrations.