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8.1
Automist Concept
Water mist technology has been applied for several years to the marine industry and is also used for some
specific applications in buildings. Clearly the use of water mist technology deserves recognition as a means
of suppressing fires.
In one of the most comprehensive test suites ever run on a mist product at the Building Research
Establishment (BRE), Plumis verified the effectiveness of Automist with live burns in a series of different
scenarios. The test was based on BS EN 1869:1997, DD 8458 1:2010, and the criteria of Scandinavian
SRSA/DSB “Easily installed automatic extinguishing systems”. Critically, Fractional Effective Dosage (FED)
measurements and “free burn” control tests were included to allow a complete and objective assessment.
These tests were run in BRE Global’s Watford (UK) Burn Hall and mimicked both furniture and kitchen
fires.
In every test where a “free burn” unsuppressed reference was available, the system produced an
improvement in both temperature and asphyxiant gas conditions, whilst reducing damage. Automist was
found to render lethal environments survivable. In a major furniture fire, even those immobilised in the
room could have survived for the entire test period of 30 minutes. A more in depth discussion of the BRE
fire testing is included in Appendix A.
450
Temperature (°C)
400
300
350
150
250
200
0
100
50
0
2
4
6
8
12
10
Time (mins)
8m x 4m x 2.5m
Temperature
0.8m high and 2m
from a furniture
fire
control
automist
