FM do very much care about pallets - so much so there is a data sheet especially for idle pallets 8-24. We found out that fire tests for 8-9 for plastic commodities were done using plastic pallets, so we challenged them as to why we couldn't use the criteria from 8-9 to protect idle pallets (rather than the outdated requirements of 8-24). They accepted this and we used this approach on several projects. Just rewritten, data sheet 8-24 now refers to plastic pallets as an uncartoned unexpanded plastic - to be protected in accordance with 8-9!
8-1 also refers to plastic pallets supporting commodities and increasing classification, but doesn't refer to flammable liquids. In 8-1, once you get to plastic commodities the plastic pallet has no effect on the classification. I expect it is the same with flammable liquids at a certain point. It would be worth asking the FM Global engineer on the project - the data sheets have unpublished information for FM only that may shed some more light on it. Not a full answer to your question, but hope it helps. Nicky Marshall Branch Manager (Blenheim) Protech Design Specialist Fire Protection Consultants 03 579 5577 021 433 488 www.protechdesign.co.nz skype: nicky-marshall 105A Alabama Rd, Redwoodtown, Blenheim 7201, New Zealand PO Box 4022, Redwood Village, Blenheim 7242, New Zealand -----Original Message----- From: Ben Young [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, 9 April 2013 1:03 a.m. To: [email protected] Subject: Plastic Pallets for FM design Fellow forumites, I'm doing a flammable liquids storage area design under FM 7-29, and I cannot find any specific information on the need (or not) to increase the design requirements if plastic pallets are used. I'm storing an ignitable liquid with a flash point <200°F in 55 gallon relieving-style metal drums on-end in a palletized configuration. I'm using Table 7 from 7-29 for this. I did a search for plastic pallets in both 7-29 and 2-0 but found no references to having to increase the design for this. 7-29 does list some increases for the use of plastic pallets, but these only pertain atypical ignitable liquids, which mine does not fall under. I didn't find anything from searching 2-0 either. Did I skip something basic here, or does FM not really care about plastic pallets? Thanks for any assistance. Benjamin Young -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://fireball.firesprinkler.org/mailman/private/sprinklerforum/attachments/20130408/e31351e9/attachment.html> _______________________________________________ Sprinklerforum mailing list [email protected] http://fireball.firesprinkler.org/mailman/listinfo/sprinklerforum
