- Author
-
Serio, M. A.
|
Bonanno, A. S.
|
Knight, K. S.
|
Newman, J. S.
- Title
- Fourier Transform Infrared Diagnostics for Improved Fire Detection Systems.
- Coporate
- Advanced Fuel Research, Inc., East Hartford, CT
Factory Mutual Research Corp., Norwood, MA
- Sponsor
- Department of Commerce, Washington, DC
National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD
- Report
-
NISTIR 5904
October 1996
- Distribution
- Available from National Technical Information Service
- Contract
- 50-DKNA-4-00096
50-DKNB-5-00174
- Book or Conf
- National Institute of Standards and Technology. Annual Conference on Fire Research: Book of Abstracts. October 28-31, 1996,
Gaithersburg, MD,
115-116 p.,
1996
- Keywords
-
fire research
|
fire science
|
fire detection systems
|
FT-IR
|
false alarms
|
photoelectric detectors
|
semiconductors
- Abstract
- A major advance in the past two decades is the availability of low cost smoke detectors based on either ionization or photoelectric detectors. However, these detectors have some drawbacks because of the high frequency of false alarms. Other types of detector technologies have been developed for specific gases, such as CO₂, CO, or O₂, based on metal oxide semiconductors, electrochemical sensors, or optical sensors. However, all single parameter methods are hindered by the lack of generality for several types of fires and a lack of "intelligence," i.e., not always being able to discriminate against false signals. The objective of this study was to demonstrate the feasibility of an Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy based fire detection system. This work involved four tasks: [1] modification of an FT-IR spectrometer system to investigate three different detection modes (open-path, cross-duct, extraction into a multi-pass cell); [2] FT-IR measurements in the three modes for several types of flames; [3] investigation of advanced signal processing techniques for data analysis; [4] preliminary design of a prototype fire detection system. The types of fires examined included polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), polystyrene (PS), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), polyurethane, douglas fir, methanol, hexane and heptane.