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Brit Berner
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Subject: Magnesium Engine Blocks Involved in Fires
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Can someone please explain to me the dangers in the above from a firefighting standpoint? We have had our first car fire and only after 20 minutes of using 2 hose reels to extinguish did we find out that the engine block is magnesium, at which point we used sand. I am interested in knowing the best practise, and dangers inherent. In addition, does anyone know which cars in the UK have these blocks? Thank you so much for your help!
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| 27-Dec-2006 22:37 |
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Ilya Ostrovsky
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Dear Brit,
I suppose that is not exactly answer to your question, but I would like to inform you as well as other people who will read the thread. We produce special coating that prevents magnesium ignition. I presented some short information about it on last magnesium conference in Dresden. The protection effect was investigated in frame of AEROMAG project. The full presentation about this investigation will be done on "Magnesium New Horizons 2" in Russia.
This coating also offers good corrosion resistance and is suitable for car engines.
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| 28-Dec-2006 09:24 |
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Cory Padfield
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The danger of magnesium from a firefighting standpoint is that a magnesium fire burns too hot and releases too much energy to be extinguished using water. Sand is used commonly, as is melting flux, and commercial products based on sodium chloride and graphite.
You can learn more from NFPA, ASM International, or materials encyclopedias available at a university library.
As far as vehicles, the only ones with magnesium engine blocks are BMW's with the new 6-cylinder engines.
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| 29-Dec-2006 23:49 |
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Brit Berner
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Thanks, Cory. Unfortunetly this car was NOT a BMW, It was a Rover. We are in England, perhaps that is why we have more cars like this? Apparently, there are many of the more expensive cars here that have these engine blocks. Thank you for the info, this will be helpful.
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| 31-Dec-2006 07:53 |
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Stephen Brown
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Hi Brit
I feel compelled to dispell some of the fears that you have by adding some comment.
1) Magnesium is already an excellent heat exchanger (in fact better than Aluminium) and would take a terific amount of heat to melt it, let alone set it on fire.
2) If copious amounts of water are used (as with normal emergency extinguishing methods) then the continuous application of this copious water supply serves to take the heat away from the Mg and the other parts of the vehicle, and will suffice, no sand needed. This can be seen in an old experiment, on video somewhere, carried out by VW to try and dispell this myth many years ago
3) If the vehicle has reached a temperature of over 700 centigrade, then the actual flammable material will be long gone and nobody should be in the vacinity
4) The coating that has been claimed to prevent Mg ignition is not proven and to suggest it "prevents" anything is wrong. It could provide additional retardent properties
5) There are no Mg blocks in any Rover vehicles, apart from maybe some experimental ones - there may be soon, but these will probably be for a foreign market - you were correctly informed that BMW 6 series has Mg blocks - with Al inners so as not to incur an extraordinary coolant that would reduce the galvanic corossion caused by small pieces of Fe floating in the coolant system from the Fe based attachments - nothing to do with fire retardancy.
6) VW and many other vehicle manufacturers have been using MG power train parts for decades, all vehicle manufacturers have tested these products thoroughly.
This is the advice from the NA Midsouth Rescue Tech.
"The most feasible attack on a mag. fire is if it is a small fire, Flood it with large amounts of water from a safe distance, and never slow the water flow until you know it is completely cool, or it will flare right back and take that much more water to do it again.
If it is a large Mag. fire, protect the exposures around it and let it burn it's self out, because you will not be able to put enough water on it to extinguish it. and if it is that large the object is already destroyed anyway, why go to the expense of using chemicals."
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| 03-Jan-2007 11:52 |
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Stephen Brown
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Apologies - one more addition I felt was important.
There is a massive difference between extinguishing swarf and chippings of Mg than there is a solid component, as with vehicles parts.
Chippings and swarf must not be disturbed or they will flare up. The smaller this is, the easier it is to ignite, as Mg needs its entire area to be heated, and this is more efficent with less surface area. You may remember the Mg strip from school. This was a very small surface area so ignited very easily.
You can actually burn a hole right through a Mg surface or part with a blow torch, take the torch away and the flame will be self extiguishing. The entire surface area surrounding the flame needs to be heated. I have video proof of this fact and is very very old news. There is also an issue with Al, Fe (both firework material) and wood, to name but a few. Most materials react differently when they have a small surface area, or there would not be such drastic measures needed for wood shop extraction to try and prevent explosions.
With Mg, any extiguishing method, including the flux and sand approach, should be applied with minimal disturbance. The pressure or force of the application is just as important as the extiguisher used. However, with larger parts, as in vehicle manufacture, this is not the case, as we are not disturbing a pile of loose material, simply applying a very cold supply to a very hot material that extracts the Oxygen from the water very efficiently. The effect can be seen as similar to putting cold water into a hot oily frying pan.
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| 03-Jan-2007 12:21 |
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Ilya Ostrovsky
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"The coating that has been claimed to prevent Mg ignition is not proven and to suggest it "prevents" anything is wrong. It could provide additional retardent properties"
Dear Stephen,
I would like to ask you, please do not make the declaration like that if you are not familiar with the subject. The coating was proved in aerospace industry at temperature 750 C. Uncoated magnesium component burnt completely. But the coated one was comparable with aluminum reference. You are probably not familiar with composition of the coating, therefore you do not know how it works to prevent ignition
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| 03-Jan-2007 12:58 |
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Stephen Brown
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I can assure you I am very familiar with most claims relative to the Mg industry, and have worked with Mg in extrusion and casting for over 17 years, and as a specialist Mg fire figther trained by the East Staffordshire Fire and Rescue service.
What you have stated is exactly what I had written, "could provide additional retardent properties", hence, as you rightly mentioned, tested to 750 centrigrade. This is not preventative, but is retardent up to the temperature tested. In a similar way to a flame retardent material, it does not prevent but does delay.
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| 03-Jan-2007 14:44 |
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Ilya Ostrovsky
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Dear Stephen,
I mentioned the temperature because it was the figure measured on magnesium surface during the test.
The test was done in bath with burning aircraft fuel.
The coating has special chemical composition that prevents ignition. It was developed for it. The composition was selected in accordance with recommendation of specialist who already works more than 40 years in development of magnesium alloys. We use special component in the coating to suppress magnesium ignition.
It is not simple retardant such as anodizing or ceramic coatings.
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| 03-Jan-2007 15:50 |
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Brit Berner
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Thanks Stephen. I really appreciate all the information. I have been surprised that the Rover and now a Ford (both we beleived to have Mg engine blocks) actually do not. I could only wonder what would cause that reaction?
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| 03-Jan-2007 19:18 |
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Brit Berner
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This thread is not for commercial use....it is a question to provide better techniques, gain information, and possibly save lives. If you are replying to this thread to get your product noticed, please don't bother. I find it offensive that you, Ilya, would post an advertisment to further promte your product on this thread. Please find somewhere else to post this. You are out of order, I need information to provide a better service, and you are attempting to capitally gain from this. Dispicable. Ilya, please do not bother to reply. Stephen, I am sorry that you had to endure this when you were trying to help me. Thank you so much for all of your information.
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| 03-Jan-2007 19:23 |
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Ilya Ostrovsky
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Dear Brit,
Flammability protection is the main issue of the most magnesium aerospace projects. Civil aircraft is not a car. Therefore prevention of magnesium ignition is more preferable than extinguishing methods in the case.
This thread is open also for other people. I suppose that information about new method of flammability protection is useful for them.
You are right this place is for sharing of new information about magnesium. It is clear that for example Stephen never hear about this research in Europe. Therefore it is really new information for him as well as for other people who read this thread.
Furthermore, I work with Magnesium.com in development of magnesium market. And in this frame I provide on the forum some information about last developments in surface treatments. If this information is not interesting for you, please feel free to skip my comments. I am writing them for other people who have problem with flammability of magnesium.
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| 03-Jan-2007 22:02 |
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Nigel Ricketts
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Brit, many newer vehicles have magnesium components near the engine bay that can be made of magnesium. Steering wheel armatures, ignition locks, instrument panels, intrusion beams, gear box housings, inlet manifolds, large radiator supports (Ford F150), seat frames. Not many vehicles have magnesium blocks though. It is not just the BMW 6-series, it is the BMW 6 cylinder engines, which could be right across the BMW range.
I have been working with an Australian company that is distributing a German product called "Cold Metal" which works quite nicely on magnesium swarf fires.
http://www.aiti.com.au/coldmetal2.asp
This is like an oil specifically developed for Class D metal fires. Some trials at a magnesium machining operation in Sydney were successful and the company has purchased the product. I have no financial interest in the product, but having up to 800kg of molten magnesium in my laboratory means that I keep an eye out for good magnesium fire extinguishing solutions.
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| 08-Jan-2007 22:10 |
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Bill Coviello
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I found the discussion on magnesium fires of great interest but have to inform some of you there is a new liquid extinguishing agent that works better then any other agent available. This was tested and approved by the US Air Force and the US Federal Avaition Adminintration for use on wheel assembly fires. Its called FEM-12 SC and must be used any where from 5 meters to 12 meters from the fire. It will not cause an explosion as what normally occurs with a liquid, and the flaring is held down to a min or does not occur if the distance is held to as recommended. Adding water will cause an explosion if the fire is allowed to fire of a significant period of time. Visit http://www.break.com/index/magnesium explosion.html this shows what can happen when you use water.
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| 23-Oct-2007 20:13 |
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Nigel Ricketts
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I am aware of this product Bill. To say that it works better than any other product on magnesium fires is a little ill-informed. Just because this product is approved for aircraft wheel fire applications does not make it suitable for all magnesium fires. If you used the product you mentioned on a fire inside a magnesium melting furnace, you would have a massive problem.
I know of many extinguishing agents for magnesium fires that do not require you to stand off 5 metres. I have conducted a lot of as-yet unpublished research on extinguishing magnesium fires in the last 2 years.
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| 24-Oct-2007 07:54 |
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Len D
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I responded to a vehicle fire last night and after using water from a fire engine ,what we believe to magnesium near the bottom of the streering column in a Ford/Lincoln Mercury 4x4 would not go out and we tried a dry chemical extinguisher and it exploded, flared up in our face , so after using alot of water, 750 gallons, the fire went out. So alot more car manufactures are using magnesium in their vehicles and firefighters should know about this danger.
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| 15-Nov-2007 21:04 |
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Nigel Ricketts
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Thanks very much for your experience on this Len. This is going to happen more and more as magnesium starts to find its way into structural components in cars.
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| 15-Nov-2007 21:42 |
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Bill Coviello
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Hello Nigel. You may be right we never tried it on a mag melting furnace, but we did extinguish zirconium fires using the agent in liquid and also dry powder forms.
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| 15-Nov-2007 21:42 |
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Bill Coviello
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Hello Len. Don't know if your interested but if there's a way I can send to you a video showing us extinguishing a mag casting fire, 25 pounds, for the Dallas/Fort Worth Fire department without any flaring and extinguishing it in about four minutes with eight gallons of liquid. Or you can contact them yourself and see if they have a video. Try their training department.
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| 15-Nov-2007 21:46 |
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Daniel Lehun
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Bill, if you would be so kind, please provide this video. I would be very interested with this. Thanks in advance.
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| 16-Nov-2007 08:49 |
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Bill Coviello
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Hello Daniel. If you send me your address to "william@tligroup.com" I'll send it to you.
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| 16-Nov-2007 11:25 |
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Luffer Wong
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I wish to contact Mr. Stephen Brown for consultation. Could you please let me have your email if you don\'t mind. My email address is lufferwong@gmail.com.
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| 06-Nov-2009 02:08 |
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