Two challenges addressed with the integration of the turbinator (Belgium)
In 2016, Tank Storage Verbeke in Hemiksem site was expanded with six new storage tanks. The tanks are in a bunded area and are connected to the truck loading station and jetty. The area is fitted with a fixed firefighting system. There are two challenges that the site had to deal with;
Amount of water
There was an insufficient amount of extinguishing water available for the fire extinguishing system of the new tank pit to enable the required flexibility. In addition, the fire department on site had to manually activate the foam system using an existing foam tanker truck. The fire truck was used to mix the extinguishing foam concentrate with the water. Set up time for the fire truck was time consuming, connecting the hoses to the foam system took too long and may have allowed an incident to develop into a catastrophic event.
Enough time
Working closely with our sister company Saval in Breda we supplied a Turbinator Maxi which was installed in the manifold of the existing extinguishing foam system. The Turbinator is permanently connected to a supply of foam concentrate which is sufficient to bridge the arrival and set-up time of the fire department to deploy the truck. This way the extinguishing foam system can be activated quickly and the tank bund can be covered in foam. By using high-quality extinguishing foam, the desired flexibility can be achieved with a lower water flow rate. This way both challenges were addressed.
Fire truck
We were also asked to design the foam proportioning system for the fire truck on the site. The customer wanted to be able to use the truck for as many applications as possible on site.
Testing the system
The new extinguishing foam systems had to be independently verified. For this a test was performed in the presence of an inspection agency. During the test we measured the actual water flow and checked the operation of the Turbinator’s: the mixing ratio of the extinguishing foam with the water. All results were good, making it a successful test.
