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Innovative Manifold Cools Off Front Line Firefighters |
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 As events such as World Trade Center attacks in New York City and the Okanagan Mountain Park fire in B.C. dramatically illustrate, firefighters face tremendous adversity.
The heat blasting from such blazes raises the core temperature of firefighters and emergency service workers to dangerous levels. What if there was a way to reduce that internal temperature at the scene so that an individual could get back on the with job much more quickly?
ìProduct developer KPS Technologies was approached by local Sudbury
fireman Ken Roy with a concept that would address that problem,î
according to Richard Smeenk, president of Agile Manufacturing in
Uxbridge, ON.
 The concept was for a ìmanifold, used to distribute water from a fire
hose to smaller hoses for the lowering of core body temperatures of
fire fighters, use in decontamination of Hazmat (hazardous materials)
teams, and in the values protection market for dousing your house in
water when wild fires approach.î Agile (agile-manufacturing.com)
brokered the design, prototyping and manufacturing process for what
became the Firebug manifold (firebug.ca).
According to Sudbury-based KPS Technologies president Rob Chaput, ìthe
product is designed to hook up to a standard fire hose, it has four
3/4-in. outlet lines that are on 50 ft hoses that go onto four
individual, 2-ft red anodized wands that have a rain shower effect.
ìWith a core temperature raised to 38-39°C, it can take 40 to 70 min
for a firefighter to cool down naturally and not in a very safe
environment, either. With our system we can cool him down in about 10
to 12 min.î
Agile created a 3D CAD drawing from a sketch provided by KPS, exposing
the limitations of the original concept. The design was reworked and a
ì3D CAD design created in a matter of days incorporated integrated
handle mounts which double as wall mounts and reduce shipping costs.
The internal geometry was also significantly modified to improve water
flow and reduce pressure loss, said Smeenk.
ìIn parallel with the 3D CAD design effort I was in contact with the
foundry, Custom Aluminum Foundry (customaluminum.com) of Cambridge, ON,
for ëdesign for manufacturingí input. Once the final design was
completed, it was able to produce pattern tooling in just two weeks.î
For finish machining, Smeenk enlisted Pickering, ON-based Williams
Fluidair (williamsfluidair.com).
 Manifold tests revealed heat treating was needed to increase yield strength to a 5x safety factor of 1110 psi. |
