Victaulic Vortex Nitrogen-Water Fire Suppression
June 19, 2009 — You say you're not worried about a fire breaking out in electrical equipment areas like elevator-motor rooms? Liar, liar, pants on fire! And if those pants were electrically charged or had some other reason not to come in contact with water, then you might want something like this fire-suppression system that the company says has "nearly zero wetting of protected areas" and uses a nitrogen-and-water mix "that is safe for the environment and personnel."
Essentially a system of pipes, springklers and tanks that's compatible with existing fire-protection systems, the Vortex disperses water droplets of just 10 microns, as opposed to the 1000-micron droplets of traditional water-mist sprinklers, which removes the heat in large fires and aids in both radiative and convective heat blocking. The nitrogen gets delivered via a water-jet stream at supersonic speed, spraying nitrogen at 40 mph. This means that the homogeneous mixture of water droplets and nitrogen gas is propelled with enough energy, the company says, to overcome the drag effect that has limited the effectiveness of some other sprinkler systems.
Traditional sprinklers typically release over 25 gallons of water per minute per sprinkler, and high-pressure systems, about eight gpm. The Vortex releases just one gpm per sprinkler, per its specs (all of which you can read here). It's scaleable and zoneable, of course.
The company, founded in New York City in 1925, calls itself "the world leader in grooved and plain-end mechanical pipe joining systems," which, you must admit, is a very specialized claim to fame. Now based in Easton, Penn., Victaulic has facilities worldwide and a Web site in English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Dutch, Chinese and Korean, plus a customer-inquiry page in Flemish.
Flemish! Nobody outside Belgium speaks Flemish, and only half of them! If a company is so sure of itself and global that it even speaks Flemish, well, then its fire-suppression products must really, really work. After all, Goldfinger was from Belgium, and nobody wants Goldfinger mad at them.
Victaulic Company • 4901 Kesslersville Road, Easton, Penn. • (610) 559-3300 • toll-free (877) 9VORTEX (877-986-7839) • vortex@victaulic.com