What's behind the door
Published: 01 January, 2009
Would you like to know what the fire conditions are behind that closed door? Who wouldn’t want better situational awareness? Jonathan Gilbert, Business Development Manager at Tyco Safety Products, introduces IFJ to a new range of intelligent addressable panels.
Knowing what the fire conditions are in an area can greatly help a firefighting team better prepare to tackle the fire – and not just from a personal safety point of view, but also to choose the most effective tactics and equipment to fight that fire. The Minerva MX range of intelligent addressable panels from Tyco Safety Products provide user-definable information on an LCD as soon as a fire is detected.
This situational awareness is especially important in the majority of buildings that don’t have a soft graphics system as part of their firefighting strategy. The LCD information can greatly help the fire brigade by warning of any special risks in an area as well as providing detailed information on hydrant locations. In addition to any preconfigured information, when an alarm is detected the temperature in the area is also displayed on the panel, and the operator can even check on levels of smoke and carbon monoxide.
Knowing what the conditions are where the fire is situated means a fire team can be better prepared for fighting the fire before approaching a fire scene. This ensures any fire is extinguished quickly and safely at minimum risk to personnel and the minimum damage to property.
Minimum damage means less cost of repairs and less down time of production. New standard for door control – ensuring fire doors are closed BS7273 part 4 (“Actuation of release mechanisms for doors”) sets new standards for the way in which fire door release units are interfaced to the fire alarm system. The standard defines three categories of actuation, A, B and C. Category A is the most demanding and should be employed for particular life risk applications.
To meet this new standard as a category A actuator, the module must be fail safe in all the following conditions: • Removal of a detector that will effect the correct operation of the door control module • Isolation of a detector that will effect the correct operation of the door control module • Isolation of the door control module • An open or short circuit on the cabling that forms part of the critical signal path (eg the addressable loop).
Minerva MX with the TSM800 door controller module satisfies all the requirements of a category A actuation system for releasing fire doors. The TSM800 door controller is approved by VdS EN 54-17 and EN 54-18 standards, and also meets DIBt and DBI (Danish) guidelines. Working this way a site safety plan is never compromised, and with other systems (under at least some of the above situations) the fire doors would not close in a fire condition, allowing smoke and fire to spread unhindered throughout a facility causing possible life risk and extra damage to the premises.
Door holding and closing is an important function with in a building but clearly it is important to also know if the door is open or closed. The TSM800 door control module also has a programmable input that could be used to either monitor an emergency breakglass callpoint that will activate the door control module, or to monitor the closure of the door. The module, however, only takes one address on the MX addressable loop. The module also incorporates an integral line isolator to guard against short circuits on the loop and is powered directly from the loop.
