Pozhneftehim on the first edition of GOST “Water and foam fire extinguishing installations. Proportioners. General technical requirements. Test Methods”

Sergey Panov, Pozhneftehim Technical Director, spoke at a workshop of the All-Russian Research Institute of Fire Defense (VNIIPO) on October 25, 2018. The draft edition of the new state standard for Proportioners for foam fire extinguishing installations was discussed at the meeting.

The draft interstate standard GOST "Installations for water and foam fire extinguishing. Proportioners. General technical requirements. Test Methods” tabled on October 17, 2018. The document was developed by FSBI VNIIPO EMERCOM of Russia. Within the framework of the Technical Committee for Standardization TC 274 "Fire Safety", the project shall be verified by specialists in the field of fire safety and fire extinguishing systems.

Proposals for finalizing the GOST first edition were discussed on October 25, 2018, at an open seminar. The event was attended by Sergey Panov, Pozhneftehim Technical Director. The central topics of the meeting were the regulatory requirements for proportioners and the problems of using fire extinguishing substances and means of their delivery within the framework of preparation for the entry into force of the EAEU Technical Regulations.

The Pozhneftehim, a member of TC 274 "Fire Safety", formally presented to the GOST developers proposals for clarifying certain points of its draft version. The Pozhneftehim principal position is to determine the list of essential characteristics of the products and the corresponding test methods. At the same time, restrictions should not be set on the production of goods that are not typical, but satisfy the requirements of reliability and can have the market demand.

“The Systematization of the requirements to proportioners and dispensing systems for foam concentrate will have a positive effect on the overall fire safety industry. The rationing of technical characteristics, test methods and quality control will allow us to combat counterfeit and low-quality products that are created by the method of “simplified” copying of equipment and components samples,” notes Sergey Panov.

The Pozhneftehim offers a classification of proportioners and dispensing systems by construction: inductor-type proportioners, automatic balanced pressure roportioners, bladder tanks, proportioners with hydraulic drive, electronic dosing systems. It is assumed that this standard does not apply to proportioners on the bypass line to the pump and to foam mixers that are used by mobile fire extinguishing means.

The Pozhneftehim proposes to clarify a number of terms, the wording of which is taken as a basis in the draft GOST. The definitions of the p roportioner and the bladder tank are suggested as follows:

• Proportioner is a device designed to dispense a foam concentrate (wetting agent) with the required volume concentration to water in water and foam fire extinguishing installations.
• Bladder tank is a system for storing and dispensing a foam concentrate, integrates the tank with an elastic capacity to store the foam concentrate or a wetting agent, and devices to create balanced conditions to feed foam concentrate to a water stream in order to obtain a premix (working solution) of a foam concentrate or wetting agent at the outlet from the system.

The Pozhneftehim feedback on the GOST revision is under consideration by the working commission. After public discussion and revision of the final version, the new GOST will establish general requirements to foam concentrate proportioners, as well as to storing and dispensing firefighting systems.

The interstate standard “Water and foam fire extinguishing installations. Proportioners. General technical requirements. Test Methods” is being developed as part of a project to improve regulatory documents on safety, environmental protection and human protection from environmental influences.