• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.89-96
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• 2013

The purpose of this study is to check the fire origin and cause of the fire by observing the shape of the flame propagation in air-conditioner indoor unit through the fire tests. We supposed that the flame is spread from the surroundings to the top of the air-conditioner and ignited on top of the air-conditioner with n-heptane. And then repeated this experiment twice under the same conditions. After the ignition, refrigerant filled in air-conditioner and lubricating oil exploded with large explosion and flame having high temperature and pressure belched out rapidly due to bursting refrigerant pipe linked air-conditioner between 734 seconds and 559 seconds. After result of checking the combustion residue we found that almost all of that was lost except a part of the evaporator, motor and metal. The position of short-circuit traces of wiring for the air-conditioner ignited itself is similar to that of fire damage by external flame. Therefore, we verified that it is not certain to determine the ignition cause and point by only the shape of the combustion residues.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.40-45
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• 2018

This paper is an analysis of the influence of ceiling air conditioner airflow on fire detector response. In order to analyze the response characteristics of fire detector while forming air flow of a ceiling-type air conditioner, fire tests were carried out in accordance with ISO standard. This experiment was carried out in a fire test site of 10 m (width) ${\times}$ 7 m (length) ${\times}$ 4 m (height). As a result of the experiment, the response of fire detector shows a normal pattern that is delayed as the distance from the fire source is increased in the absence of the air conditioner, but it is confirmed that the pattern is not maintained in the strong air flow. When the air flow of air conditioner was strong, the response time was increased by 121% in the smoke detector and by 39% in the heat detector. In the case of ceiling type air conditioners, it is considered that the number of fire detectors should be increased, or a detector with high sensitivity should be installed for early detection of fire.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.70-77
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• 2017

As the quality of live gets better, the frequency of using air conditioner is along drastically increasing. On that matter, setting up measures of preventing increasing fire cases has been required. 43,413 fire cases occurred in last 2016, the cases occurred by electricity account for about 20%(8,655 cases). Among the electricity cases, the amount of cases occurred with air conditioner issues covers 1.5%; causes of the fire incidents vary, including incomplete contacts, short circuits, tracking, and such. In this study, we intend to investigate the case of ignition at the connection point where the power cord connected to the outdoor unit is arbitrarily connected during the air conditioner installation process, and to propose preventive measures against the cause in order to reduce the damage of life as well as the property from electric fire incidents.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.40-45
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• 2013

In recent years, many electrical fires have occurred due to complex causes. Therefore, products are required to make with scientific design considering electrical, thermal, mechanical and environmental influences. Disasters can cause losses of life and property with fall in confidence of countries and companies. And demands for safe product have been increased by reason of recent deregulation followed by limitless competition. It is necessary to design safe product in order to improve corporate image and strengthen international competitive power. This paper addresses electrical fire case of air conditioner. The use of air conditioner have recently increased as a result of global warming. The aim of this study is to provide safety design and fire prevention measures of air conditioner through cause analysis and reappearance experiments.

• Journal of Korean Society of Disaster and Security
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.51-58
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• 2020

This paper analyzes the effect of airflow of ceiling air conditioner on the operation of sprinkler head using a simulation program. The simulation space is 10 m × 7 m × 3 m, and the size of the fire is 0.8 m × 0.8 m × 0.6 m. The cold air flow from the air conditioner is at 25℃ and the wind speed is divided into three cases : 10 ㎧, 8.5 ㎧, and 7.5 ㎧. Simulation results show that all cases had operating delays compared to when the air conditioner was not running, and the sprinkler head did not operate until 10 minutes had elapsed at 10 ㎧ wind speed. These results confirmed that the sprinkler head was delayed in the air conditioning space and the worst result of early evolution failure was observed in strong winds such as 10 ㎧.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Illuminating and Electrical Installation Engineers
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• v.26 no.8
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• pp.102-106
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• 2012

This paper was carried out to survey fire hazard and improvement at the drain pump in air-conditioners. Based on the results of analysis, the proposal of electrical accidents prevention and a construction improvement are as follows. A power connection of the drain pump has two types, an electrical outlet type and direct connection type at control board of air-conditioner. The electrical outlet types need a bulletin sign or education as malfunction of the drain pump include an additional accidents, current leakage and overflowing with water on the floor from breaker trip by exterior cause and breaker off by mistake of worker. On the other hand, the direct connection types prevent a power interruption as exterior cause, but it has some trouble, cut of ground cable and without protection device. Usually it doesn't work by electrician when air-conditioner and the drain pump power work. Therefore an education or countermeasures are recommended for not electrician. Generally malfunction of the drain pump causes accumulated materials into the tank. Even though the accumulated materials lead to an overheating and burning as failure of detector occur an idling, periodic inspection of the air-conditioner filter and the drain pump tank prevent the trouble.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.168-177
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• 2011

The combustion test for real box of AC outdoor unit has been performed in this study in order to estimate the fire hazard in multi-system type of AC outdoor unit which is currently used for commercial use. The result showed that in test, there was explosion inside of AC outdoor unit, and flame erupted and fire spread through upper side grill. And then this fire burnt the combustibles such as wires, electronic control board, heat exchange copper plate and plastics etc inside the unit, refrigerant gas pipe was burst due to fire, and accelerated the explosion and flame eruption to outside while the refrigerant was erupting. It is found in this test that the maximum heat release rate of AC outdoor unit is 5,830 kW, the maximum internal temperature measured with infrared camera and thermocouple is $1,201^{\circ}C$, maximum ambient temperature is $881^{\circ}C$, and flame rose higher than about 5 m. It is concluded that the fire in AC outdoor unit cause fire to combustibles around the unit, and may give big damage by generating the secondary fire. It is expected that the result obtained from the test on the real object may be applied to fire realization of AC outdoor unit and estimation of fire spreading to the combustibles around in the future computer simulation.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.31-37
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• 2012

This paper describes to analyze the ventilation performance of a room air conditioner for indoor comfort control. An experimental apparatus consists of a test room, the room air conditioner, a tracer gas measurement system, a supply fan and a controller. Ventilation performance as a function of human occupancy is evaluated with supply ventilation air using a tracer gas technique of CO2 gas in the test room. The ventilation performance is evaluated in a step-down method based on ASTM Standard E741-83 and is found to increase with increasing supply ventilation rate. The CO2 gas concentration is decayed rapidly without human occupancy. The ventilation performance without human occupancy increases up to 55% and the ventilation performance with one person increases up to 25% at the supply air of 570 lpm comparing with a natural reduction after one hour. A modeling for ventilation performance of a room air conditioner in a test room is presented using experimental datum.

• Architectural research
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.101-108
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• 2017

The use of the air conditioner is increasing due to the rise of the outdoor temperature during summer, and the problems of the fire and the cooling performance deterioration are caused due to lack of maintenance of the outdoor unit. In particular, overall performance of cooling system and efficiency in outdoor units have been degraded due to an intake of high-temperature outdoor air thereby increasing cooling energy and operating cost. Thus, this study aimed to increase efficiency of outdoor units by evaporating and cooling intake air through mist spray at the intake port surface in the outdoor unit. The measurements results showed that total power consumption of misting outdoor unit compared to that of conventional outdoor units was reduced by 21% approximately, and total power consumption of the entire system including pump was reduced by 16.7%. In addition, the operating cost including water use was reduced by 13.5% approximately. In summary, if a mist-spray nozzle kit is installed in air-cooled outdoor units, the reduction in the usage of cooling energy and operating cost will be achieved without replacement of existing cooling systems or a large scale of repairs.

• Journal of Internet of Things and Convergence
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.7-13
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• 2020

In this paper, we propose a system that monitors and controls the environment of a server room in real-time based on IoT. Recently, as the information society has been maximized, the damage has been significant when the computer system is down. In particular, damage such as a fire in the server room leads to loss of data and data recovery becomes impossible. In order to reduce such damage, a node capable of real-time monitoring using an IoT system was proposed. In addition, we proposed a coordinator node that can collect and monitor node information. In order to verify that the proposed system works, we have developed software that can control node monitoring and air conditioning. As a result of the experiment, we confirmed that the proposed system detects fire and controls the air conditioner.