Nitrogen works fine as long as the maintenance guy understands the nitrogen cylinder is just like the compressor tank with the automatic refill feature (the compressor) shut-off. Too many building folks and even fitters don't see the correlation (like the mechanic that doesn't understand the Ford starter solenoid is just like the everybody else's but in a different place) between one form of gaseous maintenance and another. Maybe it's the language. Air is something you "make" with a compressor machine and nitrogen comes from the gas supplier like acetylene. Obviously something completely different and sprinklers have AIR maintenance devices. Special gas maintenance MUST be something different. And if I remember my gas laws correctly different molecules would be excited to a different degree relative to an equal pressure so that even something like mercury vapor at X psi would be exerting the same force at a potential leak site as nitrogen at the same pressure. Of course getting mercury to vaporize might require pressures that would change nitrogen to a liquid state but that's way beyond my 7 AM/40 year ago basic college science knowledge.
On Fri, Mar 26, 2010 at 6:48 AM, Chris Cahill <[email protected]> wrote: > I was under the impression we talked about nitrogen in dry systems was a > challenge because it leaked where plain air would not. I searched the last > few years of the forum and couldn't find any such discussion. But air is > 80% nitrogen so maybe not a significant difference? How many of you have > tried nitrogen and did you or do you still have leaking problems? > > > > Chris Cahill, P.E. > > Fire Protection Engineer > > Sentry Fire Protection, Inc. > > > > 763-658-4483 > > 763-658-4921 fax > > > > Email: [email protected] > > > > Mail: P.O. Box 69 > > Waverly, MN 55390 > > > > Location: 4439 Hwy 12 SW > > Waverly, MN 55390 > > > > _______________________________________________ > Sprinklerforum mailing list > [email protected] > http://fireball.firesprinkler.org/mailman/listinfo/sprinklerforum > > For Technical Assistance, send an email to: [email protected] > > To Unsubscribe, send an email to:[email protected] > (Put the word unsubscribe in the subject field) > -- Ron Greenman Instructor Fire Protection Engineering Bates Technical College Tacoma, WA Member: SFPE, ASCET, NFPA, AFSA, NFSA AFAA, NIBS, WSAFM, WFC _______________________________________________ Sprinklerforum mailing list [email protected] http://fireball.firesprinkler.org/mailman/listinfo/sprinklerforum For Technical Assistance, send an email to: [email protected] To Unsubscribe, send an email to:[email protected] (Put the word unsubscribe in the subject field)
