Airport Pump to Serve Both Hydrants & Building?

3/3/2020

Big picture question here - I am working on an airport project. We have a Passenger Terminal Building and Aircraft Stands adjacent to the building.

I need to provide sprinkler protection with fire hose cabinets in the Passenger Terminal Building (1,000 gpm at 8 bar / 100 psi), AND fire hydrants to resupply the aircraft rescue and firefighting trucks (1,500 gpm at 6 bar / 87 psi).

Do both of these demands need to be considered together to size the fire pump (both flows combined)?

We are considering one duty pump and one standby pump. Thanks in advance.

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6 Comments

Casey Milhorn

3/3/2020 10:29:04 am

Typically hose demand for standpipes/hoses does not get added to fire flow demand for fire hydrants. That being said, this sounds like it might be a unique situation. What version of IFC and NFPA 14 are applicable?

Guillermo Lozano link

3/3/2020 11:51:48 am

Most codes consider one fire scenario at a time. Therefore, select the pump for the scenario with the highest flow requirement.

Franck

3/3/2020 12:06:26 pm

As usual, the answer is « it depends ».
Normally you don’t add demand from different areas as you are not expecting to have multiple fires.
But in you case, the fire hydrants that are used to resupply the fire trucks could be used as a supplementary supply for firefighting.
But probably not up to 1500 gpm (which is the expectations for a plane fire).
You may need to add 250 or 500 gpm from the hydrant demand (depending on your occupancy classification) to your building sprinkler demand if they are fed by the same pump.

In your case, it is highly probable that your higher demand is from one of the hangar (which lay be supplied by a different fire pump).

Mike

3/3/2020 12:34:46 pm

I've done a few projects like this in MENA. These didn't have any public water infrastructure so we ALWAYS combined the flows.

ken thackery

3/3/2020 01:12:46 pm

Some questions:
What airport? Does the airport have their own FPE? What occupancy? Do the specs or contract documents reference this or any other agreements? A lot of airports have their own NFPA interpretations.

I just finished a very large project at SeaTac -the international arrivals facility- every valve room has a redundant supply. They have a stand alone standpipe system for FHV's, 12 pumps adjacent to the airport for fire and domestic as well as concourse fire pumps for fire only.

The pressure for the standpipe system was solely based on the pumper truck pressure they were going to use- which is slightly arbitrary since they can dial it up or down.

Nimal Tussa Wijetunga

3/3/2020 08:05:06 pm

You can add both together as long as if you can hydraulically prove the pressure requirement in the system does not exceed the hydrostatic test pressure of components, fixtures,fittings, material where test pressure shall be well within 200 psi or 350 psi as allowed and corresponding working pressure of 175 psi and 300 psi respectively.

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