Realistic full-scale fire tests demonstrated the potential safety benefits of advanced interior panels in transport aircraft, and displayed the characteristics of cabin fire hazards. The tests were conducted in a C-133 airplane, modified to resemble a wide-body interior, under postcrash and in-flight fire scenarios. The safety benefit of the advanced panel ranged from a 2-minute delay in the onset of flashover when the cabin fire was initiated by a fuel fire adjacent to a fuselage rupture, to the elimination of flashover when the fuel fire was adjacent to a door opening or when an in-flight fire was started from a seat drenched in gasoline. Analysis of the cabin hazards measured during postcrash fire tests indicated that the greatest threat to passenger survival was cabin flashover, and that toxic gases did not reach hazardous levels unless flashover occurred.
Refrigerator cars in the fruit and vegetable service today are provided with compartments for ice at each end of the car. These compartments are filled through hatches fitted with insulated plugs located at each corner of the roof, and partitions, or bulkheads, separating them from the loading space. Although the designers of this type of car differ in opinion as to the kind of ice bunker to be installed, all recognize the fact that the cooling of a refrigerator car is entirely dependent upon gravity for the circulation of air within it. This circulation is brought about by the cooling of the air as it comes in contact with the ice. The cooled air slowly drops to the floor of the bunker and issues therefrom into the loading space, where it is brought in contact with the load and again slowly rises as it becomes warmer and passes through and over the load back into the bunker.
This paper presents a brief summary of recent civil air transport accidents and major incidents involving fire. It updates the paper "Investigation and Characteristics of Major Fire Related Accidents in Civil Air Transports Over the Past Ten yearsu1. A more detailed review of selected accidentslincidents is presented including their link to safety improvements made todate in fire resistant materials and their impact on improved passenger survivability and the need for improvements in aircraft systems, such as oxygen, hydraulic and electrical, to hrther improve survivability. Research and Development to reduce aircraft fire fatalities is discussed and justified using accidenttincident data. The paper discusses the problem of Halon replacement. Accidentlincident data is used to show the need to choose replacement agents that can perform well against real aircraft fires. The need for realistic test methods is discussed. The paper concludes that additional improvements in passenger fire survivability are needed and attainable. NTRODUCTION Over the past several years the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and most other aviation authorities worldwide have implemented numerous modifications to aircraft fire safety standards. Those modifications have vastly improved fire safety in transport aviation Those modifications include the following: The Seat Cushion "Fire Blocking" Rule. This rule requires that all cabin seat cushions in transport aircraft meet a large oil burner test. The result of this rule change was that most seat cushions were "fire blocked". The term fire blocking refers to encapsulating the foam with a very fire resistant material. The fire blocker is usually over urethane foam and under the outer dress cover. The fire blocking materials presently available cannot be dyed. Therefore, they are not used as outer covers. Until recently, urethane foam, the only foam meeting airline requirements, could not be made fire resistant enough without a large, and unacceptable, increase in weight. The effects of this rule have been documented in accident investigations
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