Aspiration Detection - The Benefits for Oklahoma Businesses

Fires can destroy a company, not just due to the property damage, but also because of the amount of downtime involved with repairs. A lengthy business interruption can cost a business greatly. A company’s highly-sensitive equipment in data and computer rooms, laboratories, and clean rooms can be easily damaged in a fire and not easily replaced. Invaluable artifacts in a museum can be lost in these events. This can have a lasting effect on a company or organization.

“Even a relatively small fire generates large quantities of particles that have the potential to cause significant damage to sensitive equipment and product,” Beth Tshudy, Environmental Health and Safety Manager, Analog Devices, Inc. said in a report by Honeywell.

Very early fire detection and suppression is needed to minimize or prevent sometimes irreversible damage. How can that be achieved? Aspiration detection is the solution. Aspiration detection systems offer Oklahoma businesses a highly effective way of preventing major fire damage by sensing a potential fire before it even ignites. How does this system work?

Aspirating smoke detection (ASD) systems draw air in like a vacuum through a piping system to continually get new air samples which are then measured and tested by highly-sensitive sensors that check for finite smoke particles in the air. When the sensing technology determines that there are distinctive fire patterns present, it sends that information to a fire alarm control panel that initiates the appropriate response.

“The multiple warning levels of this system can be used to trigger different responses at different stages of a fire, from controlling air conditioning to suppression release,” Honeywell reported.

How does the system know it’s a potential fire and not just dust causing false alarms? Many of these aspirating smoke detectors use highly advanced sensors to quickly and accurately detect smoke. The Intelligent FAAST™ aspirating smoke detector by NOTIFIER, for instance, uses blue LED and infrared laser dual-source optical smoke detection to detect a wide range of fires and act as a ‘checks and balance system’. These two types of sensors along with advanced algorithms can identity even finite particles of smoke and eliminate environmental causes of false alarms.

What are the advantages of Oklahoma aspiration detection systems?

• They can detect a probable fire even before observable smoke appears and thus can often prevent an actual fire.
• This very early detection allows for the fastest reaction and suppression time possible.
• Containing the fire at the earliest possible stage stops the business from having costly downtime and serious asset loss.
• They greatly reduce false alarms. Aspiration detection’s advanced technology can differentiate between smoke and dust or other containments in industrial or food processing plants that could cause false alarms.
• Difficult environmental conditions can be easily managed. In areas where physical access is limited such as in clean rooms or power plants only the sampling points need to be placed in the restricted areas, while the detection system can be installed outside the area in an easy-to-access location. Thus, maintenance and testing can be done easily even in facilities with high ceilings like warehouses, extreme temperatures, or in large spaces like stadiums.
• Aspiration detection systems provide unobtrusive design for easy installation.

Oklahoma aspiration detection systems provide the early detection and critical time needed to ensure life safety and prevent costly property damage as well as business disruption. The highly-sensitive detection provided by these air sampling systems ensure fires can be prevented or easily contained even in the most diverse and challenging environments.

(Photo by NOTIFIER)