FIRE EXTINGUISHING TESTS CONDUCTED ON LIBERTY SHIP

FIRE EXTINGUISHING TESTS CONDUCTED ON LIBERTY SHIP

Experiments Carried Out by Coast Guard Under Direction of Commander Lloyd Layman

FOR the first time in the history of American Shipping, a concerted and scientific effort is being made to determine the best methods of controlling and extinguishing fires occurring in dry cargo aboard merchant ships.

The experiments, called “Operation Phobos” from the name of the former Liberty ship used as the test “guinea pig,” are now under way at San Francisco, Calif.

Sponsors and operators of this forward step toward greater safety and efficiency for cargo vessels are the Army, through the Army Transportation Corps: the Navy, through its Bureaus of Ships and Personnel; the Maritime Commission; the War Shipping Administration; and the U. S. Coast Guard of the Treasury Department, through its Merchant Vessel Inspection Division.

“This project was originally conceived during the war,” said Mr. William T. Butler, Coast Guard explosives expert who heads the Joint Committee. “But it has an even greater application to safety at sea in peacetime and for that reason the four services decided to complete this project.

Cargo Fires Studied

“It seeks to set up for the first time scientific procedures for combatting one of the sea’s greatest menaces, dry cargo fires. Previously there existed only case histories of such fires. Now, with the cooperation of various underwriter agencies and equipment manufacturers, we are aiming at finding out all that can be learned about such fires and at setting down, after checking and rechecking, the results of our experiments so that the Maritime industry can have at hand tried and proved methods of combatting them.”

Commander Lloyd Layman, USCGR, former Parkersburg, West Virginia fire chief, who headed the Fire Training School of the Coast Guard’s Fort McHenry Training Base, Baltimore, Md., during the war, is in direct charge of the San Francisco operations. His staff includes Major Jack Christian, TC, AUS, wartime fire marshal at San Francisco Port of Embarkation; Lt. O. S. Peterson, USCGR, former Fresno, Calif. Fire Department executive who is in charge of the Coast Guard Fire Prevention Detail in San Francisco Harbor; Byron J. Culp, safety and fire expert from the Intelligence and Security Division, Office of the Chief of Transportation; Lt. Com. Basis E. Rice USNR, Bureau of Ships, Washington; Alan Osbourne, Research Section, U. S. Maritime Commission: A. C. Hutton, National Bureau of Standards; and a team of experienced Coast Guard fire fighters who assisted Commander Layman in similar experiments aimed at control of fire in ship machinery spaces last fall at Fort McHenry.

While much special equipment is being used, it is chiefly for checking and testing purposes. Mr. Butler and Commander Layman are aiming, as far as possible, at simulating actual conditions aboard ships at sea when fires break out, using chiefly materials and equipment which ordinarily would be at hand on the average vessel.

The experiments are costing little in direct outlay of money. The ship chosen for the project was diverted from a trip to dead storage by War Shipping Administration after the Navy had declared it surplus to its needs. Originally built as a Liberty cargo carrier, the vessel, known in war time as the U.S.S. Phobos. was used by the Navy in the fleet supply train in the Pacific.

“We hope to turn the Phobos back to WSA at the end of the experiments virtually undamaged,” Commander Layman said. “There may be some warped plates, easily replaced, but otherwise it should be in as good condition as the day it completed its last voyage.”

For the combustible materials needed the committee obtained from the Navy after clearance with the Department of Agriculture, a quantity of short fibre cotton originally designed wartime mattress stuffing. It is of a quality not suitable for peacetime commercial use without costly reclamation processing.

Each service contributed manpower. San Francisco Port of Embarkation, for the Transportation Corps, arranged for stevedoring and barge services.

The Coast Guard transferred one of its largest fire boats from Southern California. Equipment manufacturers donated their instruments, extinguisher material, and their experts. The 12th Naval District provided an anchorage close to its Treasure Island Fire-fighting School which will serve as an operating headquarters. The Transportation Corps provided what funds were needed from its research allotment.

After several months work, the personnel, the ship, the cotton, and equipment were brought together in San Francisco the latter part of May and by the first week in June the experiments were under way. They will continue indefinitely, according to present plans.

The tests are divided into three main parts. First step was to determine control and extinguishment of a fire in a hold 25 per cent full of cotton. Substeps for this phase consisted of trying to put out the fire by introducing Carbon Dioxide (CO2) from overhead piping; then from piping laid beneath the fire; by introducing live steam into the hold. The same three steps were to be followed with the hold practically 100 per cent full of combustible material. Finally similar experiments will be made of fires started in the ship paint locker.

“We chose cotton as the combustible,” Commander Layman explained, “because the records show that a high percentage of dry cargo fires in the 10 years before the war occurred in cargoes which were all or partly cotton bales. And it is known that fires in such fibrous materials are the hardest to extinguish.

Through pyrometers, thermocouples, and other instruments and devices the experimenters aim at determining the time required for smoke-detecting devices to indicate presence of fire; the characteristics of the burning; the temperatures developed: the direction or air currents in the fire-filled hold; the nature of gases present; the best methods of sealing the hold; the effectiveness of the various extinguishing agents and methods; the best means of getting to the core of the blaze; the effectiveness of various respiratory devices; the effectiveness of smoke objectors; the degree of heat transmitted to and through bulkheads and docks: and the most practical complete extinguishment.

“It may prove that none of the agents of methods now known will completely extinguish cotton fires,” Layman said. “Then it will be necessary to take the cotton out of the hold and break it open on the deck of a steel barge or at some land point. We’ll try to determine at what degree of control the cargo can be removed and what are the best methods of handling its removal.”

When all that is done, Butler, Lyman, Culp, Peterson, Christian and the other experts will follow up the data with laboratory tests, in which the Bureau of Standards and Naval Research Laboratory will co-operate, to obtain confirmatory checks of apparent results. Finally a report covering all phases of the experiments and drawing certain conclusions will be submitted to the services involved for eventual release to interested agencies. This report probably will not be ready for several months after the experiments are completed.

Representatives of shipping firms and naval architects are among those awaiting the report for its recommendations may involve some changes in the structure of merchant vessels.

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