THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE EM-$200^{TM}$ GAS-FILLED AFFF FIRE EXTINGUISHER FOR AUTOMATIC FIRE SUPPRESS10N SYSTEMS IN THE ENGINE COMPARTMENT OF AUTOMOBILES

In recent years, the number of vehicle fires, as well as the number of motor vehicles, has been increasing rapidly. Therefore, several types of automatic fire suppression systems for the engine compartment of automobiles have been developed to extinguish automobile fires, and most of these systems use halon 1301 as a fire extinguishing agent. Due to environmental concerns, the phase-out of halons has been announced, so now there is a need to replace halon 1301. For this, a 1,1,1,2,3,3,3-heptaflouropropane (HFC-227ea, FM-$200^{TM}$) gas-filled Aqueous Film- Forming foam (known as AFFF) extinguisher was devised even though air foam extinguishers could be used. This is because the air in the foam bubbles is a source of oxygen required for the combustion reaction. It can be surmised that it is possible to increase the fire extinguishing efficiency of AFFF by filling in foam bubbles with a gaseous extinguishing agent. The best choice is the FM-$200^{TM}$ gas-filled AFFF, Which has the maximum expansion ratio of 62:1. This makes it possible for the expanded foam to rapidly fill the engine compartment.