Gulf Construction Online - Firetrace offers vital protection to assets

Security & Safety

Firetrace systems were installed at the Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University, Riyadh.

Firetrace offers vital protection to assets

Protecting business-critical assets is essential for a company’s successful operation – and in many cases, its very survival. NICK GRANT, vice-president and general manager EMEA, Firetrace International, highlights how these assets can be safeguarded in the event of a fire.

01 August 2012

BUSINESS-critical assets can be found in every industry, indeed in virtually every business. They are particularly prevalent in the telecommunications and IT sectors, materials handling operations, mass transportation, public utilities, power generation and manufacturing industries. Assets at risk from fire range from substations, generators, server housings, electrical cabinets, machinery control cabinets and remote telecom relay facilities to all kinds of vehicle engine compartments.

Each of these assets requires dedicated fire detection and suppression solutions that provide around-the-clock, reliable protection independent of external power or human intervention, and that can handle the rigours of the Gulf’s climate.
To achieve this, it is essential to provide these assets with what has become known as in-cabinet or micro-environment business-critical asset protection.

In-cabinet protection

But why is this dedicated detection and suppression really necessary, particularly when – as is often the case – the building is protected by a facility-wide system?

Fire suppressants on board a bus.

Even with the most sophisticated and integrated facility-wide installations, by the time a ceiling-mounted smoke, heat or flame sensor or a beam detector has been activated by a fire in, for example an electrical cabinet, the cabinet and its contents are all but certain to be extensively damaged, if not completely destroyed. By their enclosed nature, these environments are effectively isolated from the facility’s main fire detection and alarm installation and fire suppression facilities.

Even if you can accept the delay in smoke or heat from the enclosed fire reaching a ceiling-mounted detector, when activated it will – if linked to a suppression system – discharge a hugely wasteful volume of suppression agent, filling the entire protected zone to suppress a fire in a small enclosure that by then will almost certainly have been destroyed.

Dedicated solutions

The demand for these solutions has seen one company supply thousands of systems to businesses in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Ras Al Khaimah in the UAE, Kuwait, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. Indeed, the company, Firetrace International, has just shipped four major multi-million-dollar orders for large projects in the Gulf, via its Dubai-based operation, Firetrace International (Middle East).

The new Firetrace cylinders and how they work (below).

The company’s Firetrace stand-alone, automatic fire suppression system comprises a cylinder that contains the chosen suppression agent, which is attached to technically-advanced proprietary Firetrace detection tubing. This leak-resistant polymer tubing is a linear pneumatic heat and flame detector that consistently delivers the required temperature-sensitive detection and delivery characteristics. It can be routed throughout the enclosure being protected. When it is exposed to heat and radiant energy from a fire, the tubing ruptures and the suppression agent is instantly discharged. The fire is extinguished in seconds, precisely where it starts and before it has had time to take hold.

Firetrace offers two systems: the Firetrace Direct Low Pressure (DPL) system and the Firetrace Indirect Low Pressure (ILP) system. The DLP system utilises the Firetrace tubing as both the detection device and the suppressant delivery system. When the tubing detects a fire anywhere along its length it ruptures, forming an effective spray nozzle that automatically releases the entire contents of the cylinder.

The ILP system uses the Firetrace tube as a detection and system activation device, but not for agent discharge. The rupturing of the tube results in a drop in pressure, causing the indirect valve to activate and divert flow from the detection tube. The agent is discharged immediately from the cylinder through diffuser nozzles, flooding the entire cabinet.

Firetrace is the only UL (Underwriters Laboratories)-listed and FM (Factory Mutual)-approved tube-operated system in the world that is tested as an automatic fire detection and suppression system. Despite the completion of more than 150,000 installations around the world, Firetrace has the enviable record of having no reported instance where a properly installed and maintained system has either false alarmed or failed to detect and suppress a genuine fire.

Saudi projects

Hundreds of Firetrace systems have been installed in the Dokaae (Development of King Abdul Aziz Endowment) project in Makkah, Saudi Arabia. They are being used to provide dedicated fire protection to vital electrical cabinets throughout the architecturally distinctive complex, which comprises seven high-rise towers overlooking the Holy Mosque and accommodates 65,000 guests and visiting pilgrims. With a built-up area of 1.44 million sq m, the structure is believed to be the largest mixed-use complex of its kind in the world.

A significant number of Firetrace systems have also been installed at the Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University in Riyadh, which houses 10 faculties and currently has more than 24,000 students and 1,300 faculty staff. Here, the Firetrace systems are again protecting vital electrical equipment housed in cabinets in six rooms in the engineering department, upon which the effective day-to-day operation of the university depends.

Prior to installing the Firetrace systems, the only fire protection provided in these rooms was conventional ceiling-mounted smoke detectors. These were deemed to be totally inadequate because, by the time a fire in an electrical cabinet was detected by a smoke detector, the equipment in the cabinet would in all probability have already been extensively damaged or destroyed by the fire.

Qatar

The same Firetrace technology is providing fast-action fire protection for critical electrical control panels for Qatar’s Ministry of Drainage Affairs’ Doha South Sewage Treatment Works (STW). Well over 1,000 systems are safeguarding machinery control cabinets, variable speed drives, and high- and medium-voltage cabinets that control drinking water pumps, and sewage and water treatment processes throughout the southern part of the city.

Each of the ministry’s cabinets is protected by a single Firetrace cylinder to provide maximum protection. Every system is linked via a low-pressure switch to a fire panel that is, in turn, connected to a main Scada (supervisory control and data acquisition) system. Every fire panel has a unique address so, if a low-pressure switch is activated, the location of the fire is immediately evident.

Electrical cabinets ... vulnerable to damage in fires.

UAE & elsewhere

Firetrace systems were also chosen to protect cranes in the UAE (Abu Dhabi and Ras Al Khaimah) Saudi Arabia (Al Khobar and Yanbu) and Kuwait (West Sulaibikhat). The decision in every instance reflects the growing number of crane operators in the Middle East that are taking the crane fire risk seriously, the companies in question having been prompted to install fire detection and suppression following crane fires that in one instance cost $2 million of damage.

Saqr bulk cargo port at Ras Al Khaimah has adopted the Firetrace solution to protect the engine bays and electrical cabinets of its six new Gottwald and five new Liebherr harbour cranes, and the engine compartments of its ship loaders; while a sustainable technology company involved in huge, multi-million-sq-m infrastructure projects in the region has also adopted the technology to protect the engine bays of its new and existing Liebherr cranes at West Sulaibikhat, the Abu Dhabi and at Al Khobar and Yanbu.

In addition to ensuring 100 per cent response reliability, 100 per cent of the time, a key requirement for both companies was that the solution had to be capable of withstanding the heavy and sometimes erratic vibration in the potentially corrosive working environments in which the cranes operate.

Meanwhile, a change in legislation requiring that all school buses operating in Dubai to be provided with automatic suppression led to the placing of several major orders by Indian bus, truck and engine builder Ashok Leyland for new front-engined school buses manufactured at its bus assembly plant in Ras Al Khaimah.

While the most popular fire suppression agent adopted for many Firetrace systems is either DuPont FM-200 or 3M Novec 1230 fire protection fluid, ABC dry powder suppression is the appropriate suppression agent for bus engines. This is because ABC dry powder is effective on every type of fire risk that is likely to be present in this particular application. In addition to fuel and the risk of fuel line ruptures, this includes any number of flammable liquids that are present throughout an engine compartment, including hydraulic, brake, automatic transmission and power steering fluids, plus combustible accumulated grease on the engine block.

As an added safety precaution, a tee is included in the installation, which takes a section of the tubing – which is routed throughout the engine compartment at the front of the vehicle – to a pressure gauge mounted on the driver’s dash board, providing a clear visual indication of the system’s status.

ISO9001:2008-certified and AS9100c-certified Firetrace International is headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, with its EMEA offices in Gatwick in the UK. Firetrace is available only via Firetrace International’s global network of authorised distributors.