Tuning rheology and fire-fighting performance of protein-stabilized foam by actively switching the interfacial state of the liquid film

Biomolecular self-assembly has lately emerged as an intriguing method for creating stable gas-liquid dis-persions with unique functional characteristics.In this work,protein-metal coordination complexes were designed as the stabilizer for generating ultrastable fire-fighting foam and creating interfacial architec-tures that were actively switched between"rigid"and"mobile"interfacial states of liquid films in re-sponse to changes in pH and bulk solution compositions(metal ions or alkyl polyglycosides).The re-flected light interferometric technique was used to check interfacial states,and the foaming kinetics and rheological response of aqueous solution and liquid foam were investigated by dynamic surface tension tests and oscillatory rheology analysis.The results showed that liquid foams with mobile films with lower yield limits had a faster spreading rate to cover the burning oil,liquid foams with semi-rigid films can-not extinguish fires due to interfacial instability,and the enhanced rheology of the foam with rigid films established a robust and impenetrable barrier to effectively suppress fuel evaporation and combustion.A new correlation between interfacial properties and the fire-fighting performance of foam was proposed,which showed that the fire-extinguishing time of foam could be well correlated by the interfacial states or film lifetime rather than classical thermodynamics entry,spreading,and bridging coefficients(ESB co-efficients).

Practice of Fighting Fire and Suppressing Explosion for a Super-Large and Highly Gassy Mine

The Baijigou Mine fire in Ningxia Province,which broke out on October 24,2003,affected more than 108 m3 of the mine and was probably the largest underground fire in China in recent years. In addition to its size,the fire was also characterized by excessive air leakage and the potential for violent methane explosions. A series of new measures were taken to fight the fire,including sealing intake tunnels with water,injecting three-phase foam through boreholes,and flushing with a large volume of nitrogen. The fire was successfully extinguished and production re-sumed soon afterwards; not one single methane explosion occurred during fire-fighting and afterwards.

Research on Multi-robot Coordination Searching Ignition Sources Approach

For the purpose of study on forecasting forest fire behavior,a probability approach was presented to search ignition sources by multi-robot coordination. Firstly,the environment map is built based on Bayes rules. Then,the probability searching strategy based on the environment map was designed. Every grid of the searching area was assigned searching expectation value, and robots selected the grid with the highest expectation value as its searching target. The simulation results show the search time reduces greatly,which proves the feasibility and validity of the given algorithm under unknown fire condition.

Nozzle Light Powered by Energy Harvesting Technology

The invention of this study harvests a portion of hydropower in the fire hose to drive a micro turbine generator and the electric power generated is used to light the LED （light-emitting diode） attached on the fire nozzle for the illumination of dark scene （it is called nozzle light in this study）. The simulation and experiment are done to match the design of nozzle light. Nozzle light provides firefighters a synergistic function to spray the water and illuminate the fire field at the same time without requiring any extra hand to handle the light. It indeed increases both the efficiency of putting off a fire and the safety of firefighters. The most innovative benefit is that neither heavy battery nor utility wires are needed to get the lighting.

Assessing the accessibility to fire hazards in preserving historical towns: Case studies in suburban Shanghai, China

Protecting large-scale heritage settlements from being damaged by fires has become increasingly crucial in developing areas that lack adequate legislation, emergency planning, and particularly efficient techniques. This study provides a systematic emergency assessment methodology for evaluating the accessibility of specific fire-fighting techniques to mitigate fire hazards in historical towns and examines how the integration of municipal and local fire services works. Specifically, this paper examines the accessibility of fire trucks, local fire services and the overall protection capacity. There are quantitative calculations of the obstruction degrees on main streets, the feasible moving distances of fire-fighting vehicles and firefighters at a given time, and the fire protection coverage and intensity in each town. Using these methods, this paper systematically assesses the fire resistance of three historical towns, Chuansha, Gaoqiao and Fengjing, as case studies. In contrast to previous studies focusing on the vulnerability of buildings in large historical settlements, this assessment method combines an examination of street networks and various emergency response techniques and is particularly applicable to developing areas.