Apparatus for fire extinguishing system for floating-roof tanks

Abstract

A fire extinguishing system for use especially on a floating roof tank includes an enclosure secured to the tank roof. The enclosure carries an agent tank, an expellant tank and an accumulator tank. The agent tank contains fire extinguishing agent and includes an expellant inlet and an agent outlet. The expellant tank contains pressurized expellant fluid. An expellant conduit extends from the expellant tank to the inlet of the agent tank. A sprayer duct is connected to the outlet of the agent tank and is arranged along one protected zone of the roof rim. A control valve is disposed in the expellant conduit. A flow control member is disposed in the expellant conduit upstream of the control valve for metering the rate of flow of expellant fluid. The accumulator communicates with the expellant conduit upstream of the control valve and downstream of the flow control member so that the accumulator is normally pressurized by the expellant tank. A heat sensitive pilot conduit is disposed along the protected zone and fluidly connects the expellant conduit with the control valve so that pressure from the expellant tank maintains the control valve closed against an opening bias. Fire-produced rupture of the pilot conduit enables the control valve to open and admit a surge of pressure from the accumulator to the agent tank to rapidly displace agent into the sprayer duct and thereafter admit metered pressure from the expellant tank to discharge the agent from the sprayer duct at controlled rate.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.