Content and Relevance of ISO and NFPA Guidelines

Presented at

VdS Technical Conference on Fire Extinguishing Systems

December 1, 1998
Cologne, Germany

Presented by

Philip J. DiNenno, P.E.

President
Hughes Associates, Inc.
3610 Commerce Drive, Suite 817
Baltimore, MD 21227-1652 USA
email: phil@haifire.com
phone: 410-737-8677
fax: 410-737-8688

December, 1998 Hughes Associates, Inc

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Introduction

This paper outlines similarities, differences, and unresolved issues of the two major
international standards on halon replacement total flooding gas fire extinguishing
systems. The first edition ISO standard, ISO/DIS 14520 Parts 1-15 (1998), “Gaseous
fire-extinguishing systems,” was recently approved by the member bodies. The second
edition of NFPA 2001 (1996), “Standard on Clean Agent Fire Extinguishing Systems,” is
currently being revised with a third edition expected to be published in 1999. This paper
will address the ISO 14520 (1), NFPA 2001 (1996) (2) and the proposed modifications to
NFPA 2001.

This paper will focus on five areas where either the standards differ substantially or
significant technical issues remain. These include (1) safety requirements, (2)
extinguishing concentration, (3) safety factors and design concentration, (4) thermal
decomposition, and (5) agent retention time.

The most striking difference between the standards is that the ISO standards is in 15
parts, Part 1 describing general system design requirements and Parts 2-15 describing
physical properties and specific halon requirements for 14 different design replacement
agents. However, both the NFPA and ISO standards are quite similar in the nature of
design and installation requirements. The agents included in these standards are given
in Table 1.

Safety Requirements

Cardiac sensitization is the primary short term "acute" toxicity problem for halocarbons
used in fire suppression applications. Cardiac sensitization is a term describing the
sudden onset of cardiac arrhythmias in the presence of a concentration of an agent
caused by sensitization of the heart to epinephrine. The presence of epinephrine is
critical to the onset of arrhythmias. This is important in fire protection applications due
to the increased production of epinephrine by the body under stress.

The toxicity endpoints used to describe cardiotoxicity and allowable exposure levels are
No Observed Adverse Effect Level (NOAEL) and the Lowest Observed Adverse Effect
Level (LOAEL). The NOAEL is the highest concentration of an agent at which no
"marked" or adverse effect occurred. The LOAEL is the lowest concentration at which
an adverse effect was measured.

The procedures used to evaluate cardiac sensitization vary somewhat. The procedure
involves intravenous dosing of male beagle dogs with epinephrine for five minutes.
Continuous inhalation exposure to the agent follows for five minutes. Following this
inhalation exposure, the dog is dosed again with epinephrine and monitored for five
minutes to determine the effect of the agent and epinephrine. The protocol is performed
at higher does until an effect occurs.
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Effects are monitored by electrocardiograph (ECG) measurements. An adverse effect
is generally considered to be the appearance of five or more arrhythmias or ventricular
fibrillation. The data from these tests are evaluated by medical experts and the
appropriate by NOAEL and LOAEL values are reported by the EPA under the
Significant New Alternatives Policy (SNAP) program.

Chemical Name Trade Name Designation Formula

Perfluorobutane CEA-410 FC-3-1-10 C4F10

Perfluoropropane CEA-218 FC-2-1-8 C3F8
Perfluorohexane CEA-614 FC-5-1-14 C5F16
Heptafluoropropane FM-200 HFC-227ea CF3CHFCF3
Trifluoromethane FE-13 HFC-23 CHF3
Chlorotetrafluoroethane FE-24 HCFC-124 CHCIFCF3
Pentafluoroethane FE-25 HFC-125 CHF2CF3
1,1,1,3,3,3 - Hexafluoropropane FE-36 HFC-230fa CF3CH2CF3
Dichlorotrifluoroethane (4.75%) NAF-SIII HCFC Blend A CHCI2CF3
Chlorodifluoromethane (82%) CHCIF2
Chlorotetrafluoroethane (9.5%) CHCIFCF3
Isopropenyl-1-methylcyclohexene (3.75%)
Trifluoroiodide Triodide FIC-131I CF3I
N2/Ar/CO2 Inergen IG-541 N2 (52%)
Ar (40%)
CO2 (8%)
N2/Ar Argonite IG-55 N2 (50%)
Ar (50%)
Nitrogen Nitrogen IG-1 N2 (100%)
Argon Argon IG-01 Ar (100%)

Table 1. Agents Included in NFPA 2001 and ISO 14520

There is no direct correlation between the experimental results from dogs to humans. It
is generally accepted due to the combination of the high doses of epinephrine in the
tests and the similarity in cardiovascular function between dogs and humans that the
results can be applied to humans. It is believed that the results of these tests are
conservative with respect to direct application of the results to humans in typical fire
suppression applications.

In addition to the short term chronic exposure limits of interest in fire suppression
system design, the EPA evaluates longer term inhalation data for these compounds.

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Table 2 summarizes NOAEL, LOAEL, and LC50 values. Note that the LC50 values
greatly exceed the NOAEL.

Trade Name Designation Formula NOAEL % LOAEL % LC50 or ALC

V/V (1) V/V (1) (2)

CEA-410 FC-3-1-10 C4F10 40 >40 (3) >80%

FM-200 HFC-227ea C3F7H 9.0 >10.5 >80%

FE-13 HFC-23 CHF3 30 >50 (3) >65%

FE-24 HCFC-124 C2HCIF4 1 2.5 23-29%

FE-25 HFC-125 H2HF5 7.5 10.0 >70%

NAF-SIII HCFC Blend A HCFC - 22 82% 10 >10 64%

HCFC – 123
4.75%
HCFC - 124 4.5%
Organic 3.75%

CF3I Halon 13001 CF3I 0.2 -- --

Notes: (1) From EPA SNAP documents

(2) From NFPA 2001
(3) Maximum concentration before oxygen depletion concerns

Table 2. Toxicity Data for Halocarbon Clean Agent Fire Suppressants

Table 3 summarizes the safety requirements for use of agents in both the ISO and
NFPA standards. The most notable difference is the NFPA=s prohibition of the use of
agents above the LOAEL.

Maximum Concentration ISO/DIS 14520 NFPA 2001 (1996)

C < NOAEL Time delay Time delay

NOAEL < C < LOAEL Time delay Not permitted

Automatic/manual switch (1)

LOAEL < C Time delay Not permitted

Auto/manual switch
Lock off valve

Note: (1) Permitted for occupied Class B hazard areas where time delay / predischarge alarm is used.

Table 3. Safety Requirements for Occupied Spaces

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An important change is expected in the third edition of NFPA 2001, with the introduction
of pharmokinetic modeling for assessing safe exposure limits for agents.(3) The concept
utilizes a physiologically based model that relates agent concentration to the uptake and
metabolism rates of agent in the bloodstream and the threshold blood concentration at
which cardiac sensitization occurs. The result of the modeling is a blood concentration
versus time curve, which can then be related to an allowable exposure prior to the onset
of cardiac sensitization at a particular agent concentration.

This concept is likely to be recognized in the next edition of NFPA 2001 as an

alternative means of setting exposure time/concentration limits. The method does
require experimental physiological modeling parameters be determined for each agent,
along with some model validation. This approach poses some regulatory problems in
the sense that the expected or “design basis” exposure time must be controlled.

An additional important change in NFPA 2001, driven by recent peer review of human
physiological data, is the establishment of 10 percent oxygen concentration or 52
percent agent concentration as the No Effect Level (NEL) for all inert (permanent)
gases.

Extinguishing Concentration

Both ISO and NFPA standards require the use of the cup burner test method for
establishing the extinguishing concentration of an agent for Class B fuels. The ISO cup
burner utilizes a variation of the burner used in the ISO carbon dioxide standard. The
next edition will include the ISO standard apparatus. The ISO procedure requires
elevated fuel temperature tests that have not been proposed for NFPA 2001.

The ISO standard requires a wood crib test in a 100 m3 test enclosure. The current
NFPA standard utilizes the same wood crib in a smaller compartment. Proposed
changes to NFPA 2001 include the 100 m3 test enclosure and the testing of plastic
sheet materials in addition to the wood crib test.

The plastic material test procedure consists of a baffled, obstructed array of four plastic
sheets (30 mm (wide) x 500 mm (high) x 10 mm (thick)) oriented parallel to each other
with a axisymmetric heptane ignition source. A schematic of this fuel package is given
in Figure 1. Tests are performed on PMMA, polypropylene, and ABS plastic sheets.

Typical results of these tests are shown in Figure 2. The proposed Class A test
procedure in general yields Class A extinguishing concentration results approximately
10 percent lower than the heptane cup burner extinguishing concentration for a given
agent, and substantially higher extinguishing concentrations than are achieved for wood
crib tests.

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 Figure 1. UL Class A test arrangement

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 N-Ext
N-Ext
660
72.6 m 3 14.5 m 3
600 PMMA-Blk
PMMA-Clr
Extinguishment Time (sec)
540 PolyPropylene
ABS
480 Pine

420
360
300
240
180
120
60
0
4.5 5.0 5.5 6.0 6.5 7.0 7.5
Agent Concentration (% by Volume)

Figure 2. Typical Class A extinguishment results for HFC-27ea

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Safety Factors

Both standards utilize a 20 percent safety factor which is applied to the extinguishing
concentration to calculate the minimum design concentration. There has been
considerable discussion directed at increasing these safety factors. The work of
Schlosser (4), which will be detailed later in this conference, formed an analytical
justification for increasing the safety factor. There was widespread support among the
ISO committee for increasing the minimum safety factor to 30 percent. The issue of
increasing the safety factor in the next edition of NFPA 2001 has not been resolved and
is too problematic to predict.

The next revision of NFPA 2001 is likely to include requirements for additional agent
quantities for hydraulically complex systems with multiple nozzles. Based on a
statistical analysis of experimental error and hydraulic prediction uncertainty, Hanauska
(5)
developed recommended increased “safety” or design factors for such systems.
Mathematical predictions of agent flow, and nozzle pressure are required in both ISO
and NFPA standards to be approved by a third party independent laboratory. This
approach consists of verifying predictions to within a certain tolerance (±10 percent) by
conducting full scale experiments on well instrumented piping networks.

If a calculation procedure predicts the nozzle mass flow to within +10 to -5 and nozzle
pressure (±10 percent) for a range of piping systems, the procedure is deemed
approved or accurate enough. Obviously, there is some number of nozzles beyond
which it is statistically likely that the mass flow is less than the expected value. Hence,
for systems with a large number of nozzles, the agent quantity should be increased to
ensure that the minimum quantity of agent is delivered through all nozzles. Note that
this problem applies in general, but it is especially significant where agent is delivered to
separate enclosures simultaneously.

The proposed factors for halocarbon agents are given in Table 4. These additional
quantities are not required for symmetrical systems or where all agent is discharged into
a single enclosure. Analogous tables are required for inert gas systems, but due to
smaller experimental errors and intrinsically similar mathematical predictions, the design
factors for complex systems are expected to be lower.

There are two primary areas of concern with respect to increasing the basic safety
factor. One involves non-ideal system installations and enclosure integrity; these
situations can be evaluated statistically. The second area of concern is related to the
uncertainty of minimum extinguishing concentration values for both Class A and Class B
fuels. Test procedures for establishing the minimum extinguishing concentrations are
fairly idealized and, of course, have certain variability in results, with typical variation of
at least ±10 percent for a standardized apparatus in interlaboratory comparisons. Table
5 gives extinguishing concentration results for several agents against heptane from the
ISO standard and other sources reportedly using the ISO cup burner apparatus. There
is on the order of a 10 percent difference between the results in some cases.
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 Number of Nozzles Design Factor Halocarbon Design Factor
Agents Inert Gas Agents

0-5 0 percent TBD

6 1 percent TBD
7 2 percent TBD
8 3 percent TBD
9 4 percent TBD
10 5 percent TBD
11 6 percent TBD
12 7 percent TBD
13 8 percent TBD
14 9 percent TBD
15 10 percent TBD
16 11 percent TBD
17 12 percent TBD
18 13 percent TBD
19 14 percent TBD
20 15 percent TBD

Note: TBD – to be determined

Table 4. Proposed Factors for Halocarbon Agents

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 Agent ISO Values Other ISO Burner Difference
Values (%)

IG-01 (Ar) 37.5 40.8 8.8

IG-1 (N2) 33.6 30.2 11.3
IG-541 29.1 31.9, 30.6 9.6
IG-55 32.3
FC-3110 5.9 5.3 11.3
HFC-23 12 12.3 2.5
HFC-227ea 6.6 6.6 0

Table 5. Extinguishing Concentration Differences

Another concern arises from the nature of the test procedures used to establish
minimum extinguishing concentrations and their relationship to actual fires. Since all
inert gases and most of the halocarbon replacements act by primarily physical flame
extinguishing means, the energy balance of the flame being extinguished is important.
The basic suppression mechanism is to reduce the flame temperature below some
critical value, which varies by fuel, at which the combustion process ceases. This is
accomplished by a combination of changing the heat capacity and oxygen concentration
of the oxidizer stream and providing additional energy extraction by phase changes or
agent decomposition. This combination of factors will result in a certain temperature
change in the flame. In the idealized case, such as a cup burner apparatus, the flame is
free to radiate energy and hence cool; typically, a flame radiates 20-40 percent of its
energy. If a heated surface envelopes the flame and re-radiates back to the flame, the
effective flame temperature will be higher.

If a fixed agent concentration used provides a fixed temperature change in a freely

radiating flame sufficient for cooling the flame to just below a critical threshold flame
extinction temperature, then the same concentration may not be sufficient for a “hotter”
flame. The effective flame temperature may be increased by the presence of surfaces
heated by the flame that re-radiate back to the flame; these may include solid fuel
surfaces that have been heated over long preburn times.

This argument implies that the precise nature of the fuel geometry, location of the
heated surfaces and fire preburn time can be expected to increase the minimum
extinguishing concentration. For systems automatically activated by smoke detectors
with short expected preburn times, the problem is not expected to be significant. For
manually operated systems or cases where long preburn times are expected (e.g.,
merchant ship engine rooms), the problem may be significant.
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It should be noted, however, that in many large scale flammable liquid fire tests with
preburn times in the range of 1-3 minutes, complete extinguishment has been achieved
at design concentrations of 128 percent of the cup burner concentration.

It is not clear whether this issue should be dealt with by changing test procedures or by
increasing design quantities where such adverse conditions are expected. Neither
standard adequately addresses the problem at this time.

Energized Electrical Fires

Fires involving energized electrical cabling and equipment in which the electrical power
is not secured may require higher extinguishing concentrations than non-energized
Class A fires. Limited data on heated PMMA rods indicate that the extinguishing
concentrations may be increased by 35 percent over unheated rods.(6) Tests on
internally heated cable insulating materials including XLPE and PVC materials indicate
extinguishment at typical Class A extinguishing concentrations.(7) The likely difference
in these results is that actual cable insulation materials are somewhat fire retardant and
require lower extinguishing concentrations than readily ignited and high energy release
polymers such as PMMA.

Neither standard has additional requirements for energized electrical equipment,

beyond containing notes and guidance to de-energize equipment prior to agent
discharge.

Agent Retention Time

The ISO standard requires a minimum 10-minute agent retention or hold time; NFPA
2001 has no fixed requirement for agent hold time, which is a serious weakness in the
standard.

Both standards require the use of a door fan test or discharge test to establish the
expected agent retention time in the protected enclosure. The details of the door fan
pressurization technique vary between the standards. The method of calculation of
expected agent leakage results in longer predicted hold times using the ISO method. A
particular problem in the ISO standard is the allowance of an arbitrary distribution of
total room leakage. The ISO method permits the assumption that the total leakage area
of the enclosure to be distributed 85 percent to the ceiling and 15 percent to the floor.
The default assumption of 50 percent at the floor and ceiling results in a more
conservative calculation of agent retention time.

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HF and Thermal Decomposition Products

All of the halocarbon replacement agents form higher levels of decomposition products
than Halon 1301 under similar conditions. For a given fuel, the primary variables
determining the level of decomposition products are (1) the size of the fire at the time of
discharge, (2) the time required to reach an extinguishing concentration in the
compartment, and (3) the agent design concentration.

The dependence of decomposition product formulation on discharge time and fire size
has been extensively evaluated.(8) Figure 3 is a plot of HF concentration as a function
of fire size to room volume ratio. The data encompass room scales of 1.2 m3 to 972 m3.
These fires include diesel and heptane pool and spray fires. The design concentrations
in all cases except HCFC Blend A (at 8.6%) are at least 20 percent above the cup
burner value. For fires where the extinguishment times were greater than 17 seconds,
the extinguishment time is noted in brackets. Note that excessively high extinguishment
times (> 60 seconds), generally an indication of inadequate agent concentrations, yield
qualitatively higher HF concentrations. In addition, Halon 1301 will yield bromine or
bromine acids as well as HF. Likewise, HCFC Blend A will produce HCl in addition to
HF.

The quantity of HF formed is approximately three to eight times higher for all halocarbon
replacements relative to Halon 1301. There may be differences between the various
HFC/HCFC compounds tested, but it is not clear from these data whether (a) such
differences occur, (b) are the differences attributable to agent mixing and distribution or
(c) attributable to locally high velocities or concentrations of agent from the nozzle. In
all of the data reported, the fire source, heptane pans of varying sizes, were baffled to
prevent direct interaction with the agent jet.

Similar data are available on the dependence of the quantity of decomposition products
formed as a function of the discharge time. Increased discharge time will also result in
longer extinguishment times. The relationship is approximately linear with a doubling in
discharge time resulting in a 100 percent increase in HF production. Clearly, increasing
the amount of time the flame is exposed to a sub-extinguishing concentration of agent
will increase the amount of agent decomposition expected.

It has been shown that increasing the design concentration of HFC-227ea from 8
percent (approximately 1.2 x cup burner) to 9.8 percent (1.8 x cup burner) results in a
decrease in peak HF concentration from 8000 ppm to 2500 ppm for real-scale large
combustible liquid fires. The researcher also found HF concentrations 4 to 5.5 times
higher than the peak HF concentration of Halon 1301 under similar conditions. The
researcher did not report HBr or bromine formation in these tests.

Although other thermal decomposition products have been identified in some cases, it
appears that HF is the primary decomposition product of interest relative to human
safety and equipment damage.
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 3
972 m [4] 526 m3 [5] 29 m3 1.2 m3
15000 {110}
Halon 1301
C3HF7
HF Concentration (ppm) C4F10
CHF3
{88} NAF-S-III
10000

5000
{22}
{25}

{20}
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
3
Fire Size to Room Volume (kW/m )

Extinguishment times (sec) are given in brackets for fires that took longer than 17 seconds to extinguish.
If more than one fire was utilized, the longer extinguishment time is given.

Figure 3. HF concentration versus fire size/room volume ratio for halocarbon agents

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While both standards provide cautionary notes on the decomposition of halocarbon
agents and the NFPA standard provides quantitative HF production information, neither
adequately addresses the issue from a design and installation standpoint. This is a
particular problem for manual operated systems where the fire size may be sufficient to
generate very high HF concentrations.

Summary

Requirements of both ISO 14520 and NFPA 2001 are quite similar, with little overall
difference for the design and installation of halon replacement total flooding systems.
Unresolved technical issues, particularly with respect to extinguishing concentration and
safety factors, remain in both documents. This reflects a fundamental lack of
consensus on how best to treat these questions.

References

1. ISO/DIS 14520, “Gaseous fire-extinguishing systems – Physical properties and

system design, Parts 1-15,@ International Standards Organization, 1998.

2. NFPA 2001, “Standard on Clean Agent Fire Extinguishing Systems, 1996

edition,” National Fire Protection Association, Quincy, MA, USA, 1996.

3. Vinegar, A., and Jepson, G., “Pharmokinetic Modeling for Determining Egress
from Exposure to Halon Replacement Chemicals,” Halon Options Technical
Working Conference Proceedings, Albuquerque, NM, USA, 12-14 May 1998.

4. Schlosser, I., “Determination of Safety Factors for Gas Extinguishing Systems by

Analytic Methods,” VdS, Germany, August 26, 1997.

5. NFPA Technical Committee Report on Proposals, NFPA 2001, “Standard on

Clean Agent Fire Extinguishing Systems,” National Fire Protection Association,
Quincy, MA, USA, July 1998.

6. McKenna, L.A., Gottuk, D.T., and DiNenno, P.J., “Extinguishment Tests of

Continuously Energized Class C Fires,” Halon Options Technical Working
Conference Proceedings, Albuquerque, NM, USA, 12-14 May 1998.

7. Neiman, R., and Bayless, H., “Update on the Evaluation of Selected NFPA 2001
Agents for Suppressing Class ‘C’ Energized Fires,” Poster Paper, Halon Options
Technical Working Conference Proceedings, Albuquerque, NM, USA, 12-14 May
1998.

8. DiNenno, P.J., “Direct Halon Replacement Agents and Systems,” Fire Protection
Handbook, Eighteenth Edition, National Fire Protection Association, Quincy, MA,
1997.

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