Galaxie experimental platform

DIVA (Dispositif incendie ventilation et aérocontamination) enables highly instrumented fire tests to be carried out in configurations involving several confined and mechanically ventilated rooms, which are likely to affect nuclear facilities such as laboratories and factories, as well as pressurised water reactors (PWRs).

The objectives of this facility are to assess the consequences of a fire in a "multi-room" configuration:

• Changes in pressure, temperature and nature of gases in the facility

• Smoke propagation between different rooms (doors, valves, floor openings, etc.) and impact on the facility and its equipment

• Interactions between the fire and fire mitigation systems

• Fire-ventilation interactions

This experimental facility is a large-volume chamber connected to a complex ventilation system, enabling the simulation of high-power fire scenarios in various configurations representative of fires that could occur in nuclear facilities:

• Changes in pressure, temperature and nature of gases in the facility

• Under-ventilated fires in confined atmospheres

• Fire propagation to targets

• Malfunction criteria in representative configurations

• Fire-ventilation interactions

• Fire-sprinkler system interactions

The large-volume (2000 m³) SATURNE facility, which is well ventilated and equipped with a large-scale calorimetric hood, allows fire tests to be carried out in open conditions (without oxygen limitation) to achieve maximum fire development. It allows the maximum fire power to be characterised for a wide range of fuels (cable trays, electrical cabinets, etc.):

• Analysis of the thermal impact of fires (heat flux) on structures and safety equipment,

• Reference fire power to feed into fire safety studies and supplement fire tests carried out in confined and mechanically ventilated environments (DIVA and PLUTON facilities).

It also aims to study the spread of fire on complex fuels (electrical cabinets, waste drums, glove boxes, etc.).

The CISCCO device is used to study pyrolysis and fire propagation on combustible surfaces (electrical cable trays, polymer sheets, etc.) that are preheated and arranged horizontally or at an angle. It enables the development of a database to propose and validate correlations and models of pyrolysis and propagation. The parameters measured by the installation include: flame and fuel temperature, fire spread rate, heat flux, fuel mass and pyrolysis mass flow rate, fire power and growth rate.

This experimental facility is equipped with a smoke extraction hood, used to determine the specific parameters of medium-scale fires in an open environment. The purpose of the MARS facility is to enable the development of advanced non-intrusive experimental methods.
The MARS facility allows:

• The study of medium-scale fires in open environments

• The characterisation of fire sources for all types of fuel (gas, liquid, solid)

• The implementation of advanced non-intrusive experimental methods: particle image velocimetry, infrared camera systems, ombroscopy

The NYX and STYX devices are small-scale enclosures designed to provide a detailed understanding of fire scenarios in confined, mechanically ventilated spaces. The small scale allows for the use of advanced measurement techniques such as particle image velocimetry (PIV) and OH radical chemiluminescence.
The subjects studied include the circulation of smoke or fresh air through doors or vents, combustion in under-ventilated conditions, and the combustion of high fires.
The devices are modular and allow the study of the characteristics of the ventilation network (flow rate, position of vents), the fire (gas, liquid or solid fire, position in the room) and the nature of the walls.

DANAÏDES (Analytical device for studying electrical malfunctions caused by soot in the event of a fire) is used to characterise malfunctions in electrical equipment subjected to thermal stresses and/or aerosol (soot) concentrations representative of fire conditions by measuring changes in electrical input and output signals. Malfunction criteria are determined for several types of equipment and different configurations.

The CADUCEE (Controlled Atmosphere Device for Unburnt and Carbon Emission Evaluation) device is used to create fires in a controlled atmosphere with low oxygen content and under an additional external incident and controlled heat flux in order to quantify the influence of these two controlled parameters on the main combustion parameters (pyrolysis rate, fire power, radiation, flame temperature) for different types of fuels. The ultimate goal is to establish correlations for use in fire models.