As a result of their mission, military vehicles are exposed to hydrocarbon destructive fires or explosions through their life.
In combat situations an explosion may occur in the crew compartment when an enemy round pierces the vehicle armour cutting fuel or hydraulic lines inside the vehicle: the combustible heated by the high energy round is instantaneously turned into vapour and easily ignited by high temperature fragments: the result is an explosive fire that will certainly kill the crew members.
In peace keeping operations a Molotov cocktail thrown by insurgents into an open hatch of the vehicle may result in destructive fire onto the crew members.
High pressure diesel injection systems and turbochargers may become a source of fast growing fires in engine compartments in case of fuel line ruptures even in peace exercise operations.
In all these cases the time to react to this extremely fast phenomena cannot be left to human beings: an Automatic Fire Sensing and Suppression (AFSS) system will save the lives of your crew and protect your high value equipment. Martec’s multiple spectrum infrared sensors will immediately detect the fire, a control electronics will filter the fire signals and activate high speed solenoid valves in less that 15 milliseconds. The extinguishing agent is dispersed into the compartment by one or more suppressors in less than 100 ms. The explosion will be suppressed in less than 250 milliseconds, the duration of a blink of your eye. Early suppression will avoid pressure and temperature build-up in the compartment while reducing the combustion and acid gases generation to a minimum tolerable by personnel. Martec AFSS system components have been qualified through extensive live fire tests carried out by the Department of the Navy of the Italian Ministry of Defence: during this campaign response and suppression times have been recorded and validated using non-Halon, zero ODP (ozone depletion potential), one GWP (global warming potential) extinguishing agent, fully compliant with Montreal Protocol and F-Gas European regulation.
An artist’s impression typical sequence of a vehicle without the AFSS system experiencing a destructive rapid growth fire is shown on the upper storyboard.
The lower storyboard represents a typical sequence of a suppressed fire or explosion in the same vehicle: the time stamp reported below each frame is taken by a real successful suppression test conducted during the validation campaign.