Wildfires: UC team carries out tests on gas bottles
The study is part of the European project "FirEUrisk - Developing a Holistic, Risk-Wise Strategy for European Wildfire Management".
Translation by Diana Taborda
A team from the Centre for Forest Fire Studies (CEIF) of the Association for the Development of Industrial Aerodynamics (ADAI) of the Faculty of Sciences and Technology of the University of Coimbra (FCTUC) carried out a series of field tests with domestic gas cylinders to study their behaviour when exposed to a forest fire. The tests took place in a quarry belonging to the Sabril company in Miranda do Corvo.
Three types of gas cylinders, with and without safety systems, were tested for gas release by increasing the pressure or temperature inside the cylinder. Two of the cylinders were metallic and one was polymeric. Each of the cylinders was equipped with pressure and temperature sensors connected to image and data recording systems, placed remotely and subjected to a fire outbreak under conditions typically observed in house fires.
In two cases, says Domingos Xavier Viegas, head of the ADAI laboratory and coordinator of the project, "the protection systems worked as expected and there was a release of gas without the cylinder exploding. It should be noted that the release of the gas produced for some time a jet of high intensity flame, more than six metres long, which could have significant destructive effects in the event of a fire in the vicinity of a dwelling or vegetation".
"The potentially most serious case, however, occurred in a bottle which, because it had no protective device to limit the increase in pressure in the cylinder, exploded with great force. It produced a fireball more than seven metres high and threw two metal parts of the cylinder more than a hundred metres away, fully justifying the safety measures taken by the team during the tests," says the scientist.
The results of these tests are now being analysed by the ADAI team, but according to Thiago Fernandes Barbosa, project researcher, the observations made "confirm the previously identified risk associated with the presence of this type of gas container inside or near houses exposed to the risk of forest fires". The lessons learnt will be incorporated into the training provided by ADAI to civil protection agents and citizens, in order to contribute to their safety".
The study is part of the European project "FirEUrisk - Developing a Holistic, Risk-Wise Strategy for European Wildfire Management".
FirEUrisk, which is currently the largest European scientific research project on the topic of wildfires, of the Horizon 2020 programme, began last April and will last for four years. It involves about 40 entities and is coordinated by ADAI. This project is studying the problem of population safety when affected by extremely violent fires, such as those which have occurred with increasing frequency in recent years.