Gexcon has established and started using a facility to test the jet fire resistivity of equipment and passive fire protection. The facility is located at Gexcon’s fire and training centre at Steinsland in the municipality of Sund just outside of Bergen, Norway.
Gexcon has performed large-scale explosion experiments at their test site in Børnesskogen also in the municipality of Sund since 1984. The explosion tests have contributed significantly to understanding the factors affecting the course of explosions which again have been critical and important to be able to protect facilities both in the offshore industry and land-based process industry. The explosion test site has been extended and upgraded in the last 5 years and now Gexcon has taken an important step towards fire protection.
Gexcon is a global actor with considerable competence, experience, and world-leading technology and software in the field of fire and explosion safety, dispersion and risk management. The company is a subsidiary of NORCE, the new research, and development company in Western Norway established after the merging of 5 research companies. Gexcon has its head office in Bergen and subsidiaries in the USA, Australia, UK, China, Indonesia, the Middle East and India and is in the process of opening new offices in Mexico, Canada, Malaysia, and Sweden.
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Jet fire testing facility
The establishment of the jet fire facility started in 2017 and has cost about 30 million NOK including commissioning tests. The facility allows for testing equipment and passive fire protection in accordance with the equipment and procedures described in standard ISO 22899-1. A facility as described in the standard shall generate heat fluxes of 250 kW/m2 on average and 350 kW/m2 as a maximum short duration load. In praxis (in case of large release rates), however, higher heat loads of equipment are possible (> 400 kW/m2).
The new facility has been designed to generate such big fire loads over longer periods as well. The new jet fire test facility as such can deliver the highest jet fire loads in the world and has been developed in close collaboration with industry partners. In combination with the software package FLACS-Fire, the facility will allow for testing safety-critical equipment and passive fire protection for any realistic jet fire load possible.
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Standard jet fire scenario based on ISO 22899-1
Gexcon has taken another step to enlarge the spectrum of services it can offer to industry within fire and explosion safety.
