Safety and communications
This overall system view saves those charged with maintaining these systems from having to visit multiple physical locations. Historically, many different networked
systems were based on star, radial and loop typologies. Today, to ensure greater system security, a looped system is recommended, as it uses diverse cable routing techniques. Should a single fault occur, affecting communications, the elements of the system can still function and communicate with each other in order to provide a coordinated response (see case study on p40).
Easy expansion
Scalability/cause and effect A truly scalable fire network will allow different typologies suitable for sites of various sizes with vast cause and effect options. Networks designed within buildings generally use standard fire resistant copper cable; however, as buildings are increasingly networked together, fibre optic cable has become the preferred medium. This allows the fire alarm network to cover significantly greater distances. The nature or purpose of a building area
needs to be considered when networking systems. For example, detectors will be grouped to allow appropriate alarm annunciation, therefore systems need to provide enough zones. Depending on the size of the site, a fire alarm network may have multiple panels, hundreds of zones and thousands of devices. Therefore, the need for sophisticated cause and effect, and intuitive, easy programming of rules becomes crucial, particularly as all of these may potentially be linked to graphical alarm reporting systems (see case study on p40).
Fit for purpose?
In complex buildings, the fire system may be managing all manner of inputs and outputs as a fire spreads, including smoke control, graphical indication, voice evacuation, door closures, direct connections to monitoring stations and gas suppression. The fire system needs to work quickly and
reliably, and to process large numbers of changing signals in the event of a real fire situation. On larger sites, seconds count and fast systems are highly valuable in maximising the time for verification, escape and firefighting. When selecting the most appropriate networked fire system, it is important to ask: • can information be displayed clearly and logically across the whole site? • is the system truly scalable?
FOCUS
• is it easy to program and maintain, and can it be easily expanded in future?
•
will the system perform correctly, and are its cause and effect capabilities adequate?
• does the network offer appropriate levels of reliability in the event of a fire or fault?
Individually, many fire systems may appear to meet the challenges that are posed on large scale sites. However, in complex buildings these systems are likely to be networked, and attaining adequate performance levels under these circumstances is not always achievable with inferior fire panels. As the number of panels and input and output options on a network increases, so does the need for a high performance, networked system that will deliver reliability and resilience. It must also offer network cabling solutions that are scalable, accommodate sophisticated cause and effect, and facilitate system architecture which can adapt to the size and purpose of a building
Paul Duffy is technical services manager at Advanced. For more information, view page 3
www.frmjournal.com MAY 2020 41
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