Fire Control and Suppression by Water-Mist Systems

The present work is an attempt to offer a comprehensive review of literature contributions, phenomenology and relevant results on water-mist systems. In particular, the water mist characterization and behavior in the field of fire control and suppression have been identified as the main areas of investigation. Some key parameters have been analyzed to gain a quantitative evaluation of the physical phenomena related to water-mist systems. The water-mist fire suppression systems are an excellent alternative to halon fire protection systems, and they are now being used in many areas, including marine and industrial applications. Therefore, a wide survey of the complete number of literature works on this topic would exceed the full length of the present paper and only some examples of important contributions will be mentioned here. This paper proposes an introductory list of relevant literature works and this reference survey is then deepened with work and result details on suppression mechanisms, spray characterizations and experimental and numerical approaches. The final summary stresses out that a lot of experimental and numerical research and much application experience are still needed to gain better knowledge on water-mist systems, even if they already seem to be very promising in terms of efficiency and potentialities in fire control and suppression.