Experimental investigation on the leakage plugging and fire extinguishment characteristics of industrial solid waste-based composite foam slurry materials

For understanding the leakage plugging and fire extinguishment characteristics of industrial solid waste-based composite foam slurry material (CFSM), the plugging effectiveness, thermal stability, and fire extinguishing and cooling process were analyzed systematically. The experimental device was designed to test the plugging effect of CFSM, when the thermal stability performance monitoring system and fire-extinguishing experimental platform were built to analyze the thermal stability, heat insulation properties, and extinguishment of CFSM, respectively. The results revealed that the surface temperature of CFSM with thickness more than 60 mm would not exceed the critical self-heating temperature of coal (60 °C) before reaching the equilibrium state of condensation heat, thus showing the good thermal insulation effect. The thermal conductivity of CFSM did not exceed 0.098 W/(m·k), indicating the excellent thermal insulation properties. The plugging experiments exhibited that the macroscopic plugging effect of CFSM with thickness more than 40 mm was less different from that of the completely sealed state, and the closed porosity of CFSM reached 74.5%, thus showing the well plugging performance. Moreover, the fire-extinguishing experiments indicated that CFSM could quickly flow and diffuse in burning coal, and exhibiting the well fire-extinguishing properties by covering the fire source, bonding-coating and lasting oxygen insulation. The study would provide an effective basis for the application of fire extinguishment technology using CFSM. •The hydration reaction mechanism of composite foam slurry material was exhibited.•The rheological characteristic of composite foam slurry material was investigated.•The diffusion law and equation of composite foam slurry material was obtained.•The bonding-reinforcement mechanism of this material was revealed.