Heat Transfer Help: Estimating Cooling Capability w/ Q=mcDT

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William12
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OK so I have a little issue I'm dealing with.. here are the basics..

There is a material that was filtered and came out of the filtration process at about 330 degrees (it comes out as a solid filter cake). It somehow caught on fire which caused the deluge system to activate.

I just want to know if there are any basic ways of proving that our current system is adequate.

Here is what I thought about doing. Calculating the heat that would need to be "lost" in cooling the cake from 330 degrees to some safe temperature by using Q=mcDT and then somehow seeing if our current volumetric flow rate of water can provide that capability.

Are there any other BASIC (im not trying to make it too difficult) theories or formulas I could use?

The filtered material has known properties such as mass, volume, density... etc
 

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hBasically I want Help with calculating mass of water required to drop the temperature of the cake from 330 to another "safe" temperature
 
William12 said:
OK so I have a little issue I'm dealing with.. here are the basics..

There is a material that was filtered and came out of the filtration process at about 330 degrees (it comes out as a solid filter cake). It somehow caught on fire which caused the deluge system to activate.

I just want to know if there are any basic ways of proving that our current system is adequate.

Here is what I thought about doing. Calculating the heat that would need to be "lost" in cooling the cake from 330 degrees to some safe temperature by using Q=mcDT and then somehow seeing if our current volumetric flow rate of water can provide that capability.

Are there any other BASIC (im not trying to make it too difficult) theories or formulas I could use?

The filtered material has known properties such as mass, volume, density... etc

Welcome to the PF.

What do you mean by "somehow caught on fire"? Did something else catch it on fire, or was the material above its combustion temperature? Can you say what the material is? What is listed in Section 5 of the MSDS for this material (that is the Fire Fighting section of the MSDS)?

When you say you want to "prove that your current system is adequate", which system? The filtration system? The fire suppression system? Some new system that you want to incorporate that will cool the material below its combustion temperature before exposure to air?
 
I want to prove the fire suppression system is adequate. To be honest, we are not sure why it caught on fire, some say static accumilation, some say autoignition. We are currently investigating. I have not had a chance to view the msds yet so I couldn't really tell you what the filtered material is besides that it contains celite
 
berkeman said:
Welcome to the PF.

What do you mean by "somehow caught on fire"? Did something else catch it on fire, or was the material above its combustion temperature? Can you say what the material is? What is listed in Section 5 of the MSDS for this material (that is the Fire Fighting section of the MSDS)?

When you say you want to "prove that your current system is adequate", which system? The filtration system? The fire suppression system? Some new system that you want to incorporate that will cool the material below its combustion temperature before exposure to air?
See above
 
I'm not sure we can help you prove anything about the fire suppression system. We certainly are not experts on HAZMAT fires and their suppression. Do you have any HAZMAT qualified experts accessible to you at your work? You may be able to get some help through your local OSHA office, or your local fire department's HAZMAT team.
 
berkeman said:
I'm not sure we can help you prove anything about the fire suppression system. We certainly are not experts on HAZMAT fires and their suppression. Do you have any HAZMAT qualified experts accessible to you at your work? You may be able to get some help through your local OSHA office, or your local fire department's HAZMAT team.
Thanks for the support