Passive Dry Bay Fire Extinguishing System

Aircraft fire protection requires high reliability in that there is no escape, short of ejection and loss of aircraft, from onboard fires.  With an abundance of flammable fluids and materials and ignition sources the threat of onboard fire is of great concern.  Prevention of fire is the best practice of design thereby minimizing the hazard.  However, history has shown that fires are a reality and traditional means of both preventing and extinguishing fire requires improvement.  The proposed passive extinguishing system is based on proven and fielded technologies combined with new innovative component designs to present a totally passive and independent system, requiring no power whatsoever, which is effective against extinguishing multiple independent fires.  The system is based on temperature sensitive tubing that is routed within a dry bay and connected to pressurized vessels and sequencing valves containing extinguishing agent.  One set of tubing is pressurized and subsequent sets are not.  When the pressurized tube is exposed to heat (i.e. fire) it fails in the heat location and dispenses agent directly on the fire.  The discharge through this line then arms a second valve and pressurizes a second line so it is ready to extinguish a second, independent fire. BENEFITS: The initial customer base we will approach for the new concepts would be next generation unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) and prime contractors for both commercial and military aircraft applications.  The market need in these areas is very high in that the cost of UAVs is beyond the disposable range and survivability requirements are becoming realized.  In addition, there are major aircraft acquisition programs within DoD that have identified fire as a very high concern yet suppression has not yet been defined. This technology has promise for expansion within the military ground vehicle and ship markets as the next logical level of progression.  It is evident that there is a firm market need in both these areas based on our experience supporting the Army and Marines in development and test of ground vehicles as well as our previous Naval ship SBIRs supporting the development of next generation fire modeling and structural failure methods. Commercial applications are nearly endless such as the automotive industry (e.g. under the hood for engine fires), restaurants and kitchens (e.g. exhaust hoods), and even at home application near water heaters and furnaces.  Because of the design simplicity, systems such as this could be technician level, or even user installable retrofit kits that could be purchased at automotive or appliance stores for example.