How Compressed Air Foam System Works

Author: hostarticles | Posted: 05.12.2011

Firefighting is a very tough job and there needs to be perfect equipments to extinguish the fire. With advanced technology, the job has become a less tough and the firefighters are now able to save un-burnt places from catching fire and extinguish fire quickly. One such thing is compressed air foam system which is also known as CAFS.

The CAFS is a system which delivers foam that is fire retardant which can also be defined as a standard water pumping system where compressed air is added to a foam solution to generate foam. As this is done at the entry point and the air is compressed throughout it, also generated energy which makes the process quite faster and a huge amount of foam can be generated at a very short time. It works better than any other water nozzle and that is why it efficiently extinguishes fire.

The compressed air foam system came into being as scientists understood that it is not a great idea to extinguish fire with water because it is quite costly to maintain a huge storage of water. It also takes a lot of time to do the job for the firefighter. Then the compressed air foam system was developed which was less costly and easy to maintain. In this, there is a centrifugal pump, a source of water, tanks containing foam, an air compressor, direct injection system for proportioning foam, a mixing chamber and a control system that determines the mixing is correct. The system works in three ways. First of the foam that is released works as a blanket on fire that does not allow it to get more oxygen, the solution rapidly spear on the wall and other places to control heat, and the opaque part of foam seals the fire with its radiant energy. All these make the system work properly.

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