The design, construction, demonstration, and operation of a bench-scale dev
ice capable of comparison screening the fire suppression efficiency of liqu
id agents are described in this paper. The apparatus is based on a well-cha
racterized flame, a means to facilitate the introduction of liquid agents,
and a way to generate liquid droplets. A porous cylinder in a counterflow d
iffusion configuration is used. A small-scale vertical wind tunnel, which a
llows for the delivery of a uniform flow of oxidizer to the burner and also
assists in the delivery of liquid agent droplets to the flame, is used for
the flow facility. Droplets are generated by a small glass nebulizer. The
performance of the screening apparatus was evaluated using several liquid f
ire suppressants with different thermophysical properties. A test protocol
is also proposed. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.