Detecting smoke in rooms with high air flow

High airflow inside a building may be due to:

Air conditioning
Open doors and windows
Draughts

all have the same effect on smoke - dilution. This makes smoke difficult to detect until a fire generates enough heat energy for the smoke to break free of the airflow and rise. By that time the fire is large enough to have caused serious damage and will certainly have contaminated surrounding materials.

> A VESDA air sampling smoke detection system actively samples air rather than passively waiting for smoke to rise. Air samples are continuously drawn into a pipe network and pulled to a detector to be measured.

Traditionally, smoke detectors are placed on the ceiling. Sampling points for the VESDA pipe network can be placed along the airflow path - where the smoke is likely to travel. By locating smoke detection at places such as the return air grille, smoke is detected very early, giving the maximum time to respond. Response may be as simple as switching off the power to a computer that has overheated. If the smoke had gone undetected the response may have been activation of a suppression system. The resultant downtime could have significant business impact.

Learn more

Contact us
Call us to find out how to implement a smoke detection system that works in a high airflow environment.

How VESDA works
What to consider when designing a smoke detection system for a clean room in a fab.

Protecting business-critical Telco and Data facilities
This brochure (PDF) describes the fire-risks within a Datacom facility and how to design a smoke detection system to minimize those risks.

VESDA + Suppression - Whitepaper
What A Coincidence! - Very Early Warning Smoke Detection together with Suppression Actuation

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