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Spacecraft Fire Safety

Urban, David L. ; Ruff, Gary A. ; Fernandez-Pello, A. Carlos ; T’ien, James S. ; Torero, Jose L. ; Cowlard,Adam ; Rouvreau, Sebastien ; Minster, Olivier ; Toth, Balazs ; Legros, Guillaume

Publication date:2012

Document VersionPublisher's PDF, also known as Version of record

Link back to DTU Orbit

Citation (APA):Urban, D. L., Ruff, G. A., Fernandez-Pello, A. C., T’ien, J. S., Torero, J. L., Cowlard, A., ... Jomaas, G. (2012).Spacecraft Fire Safety. Poster session presented at 34th International Symposium on Combustion, Warsaw,Poland.

Spacecraft Fire Safety

David L. Urban and Gary A Ruff: NASA Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, OH, USAA. Carlos Fernandez-Pello: UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USAJames S. T’ien: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USAJose L. Torero and Adam Cowlard: University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UKSebastien Rouvreau: Altran, Toulouse, France

Olivier Minster and Balazs Toth: ESA ESTEC, Noordwijk, NetherlandsGuillaume Legros: Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, FranceChristian Eigenbrod: University of Bremen (ZARM), Bremen, GermanyNickolay Smirnov: Moscow Lomonosov State University, Moscow, RussiaOsamu Fujita: Hokkaido University, Sapporo, JapanGrunde Jomaas: Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark

International Topical Team Formed Problem Identification Vessel Identification

Overpressure Testing and Modeling Ground Experiments ISS Experiments

The Road AheadValidation ExperimentParabolic Flight Experiments

Full scale fire testing complemented by computer modeling hasprovided significant knowhow about the risk, prevention andsuppression of fire in terrestrial systems (cars, ships, planes, buildings,mines, and tunnels). In comparison, no such testing has been carried outfor manned spacecraft due to the complexity, cost and risk associatedwith operating a material flammability experiment of a relevant sizeand duration in microgravity. Therefore, there is currently a gap inknowledge of fire behavior in spacecraft.

NASA Test1 challenges

Microgravity Sciences Glove (MSG) Box tests conductedThe experiment will need to meet rigorous safety requirements toensure the carrier vehicle does not sustain damage

Larger glove box facility on ISS?

Team members have significant experience with parabolic flights andmore experiments will be conducted.

Contact Grunde Jomaas (grujo@byg.dtu.dk) for more information or to express interest in participation.

Flammability limits differ

The first step is to provide an appropriate tool that will integrate fire safety into design and management of space vehicles. Such a tool will integrate a wide range of design issues including, but not limited to, material selection, emergency response, crew training, post-fire clean-up, fire detection, fire suppression, environmental control and life support (ECLS) system design, and even atmosphere selection to provide a globally optimised solution.

The large-scale material flammability demonstration will facilitate theunderstanding of the long-term consequences of a potential spacecraftfire and provide data not only for the verification of detailed numericalmodels of such an event, but also for the development of predictivemodels that can assist and optimise fire prevention, response andmitigation.

Spacecraft Fire Safety is a project run by scientists from NASA andESA, plus a group of international scientists (pictures below), thataims to revolutionize spacecraft fire safety designs for next-generation space vehicles and habitats. It will feature a validationexperiment on an unmanned but pressurized vehicle such as the ESAAutomated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) after it has completed its supplymission to the International Space Station.

Develop and demonstrate next-generation fire safety instrumentationand predictive tools to guide future spacecraft designers and crewmembers.

It is important to emphasize that the experiments on the identifiedvessel will be validation experiments, not data mining experiments. Assuch, the other experiments will guide the design. Further, the sensordensity should be very high to support modeling efforts..

SIBAL before and after test

Drop Tower Experiments

Orbital – Cygnus? SpaceX – Dragon?

Experiment not performed on ATV-5 – new vessel needed (ATV, HTV)

Critical flux for flame spread

Soot measurements in flame (backlighting technique)