ENCLOSURE INTEGRITY TESTING

Gaseous Fire Suppression – the BIG question?
Users need to know whether their gaseous fire protection system will work! After mechanical and electrical checks have been completed the question remains – ‘if agent is released onto a fire, will it achieve its extinguishing concentration and maintain it for long enough to both extinguish the fire and prevent re-ignition?’

Our fan testing enables rooms to be tested using a portable variable speed fan instead of discharging the gaseous agent. The multi pressure test results are fed into our software with system data, which determines the total leakage area and the extinguishing concentration ‘hold time’.

British, European and ISO standards now mandate a fan integrity test to determine the ‘hold time’ for all new gaseous fire extinguishing systems. The standards also call for rechecking of enclosures, at least every 12 months, to establish that building/services changes that take place have not compromised the effectiveness of the gaseous fire protection.

Automatic Fire & Integrated Solutions fan test protocol accurately predict the hold times for any inert or chemical gases.

How the Integrity test works

Automatics test kit comprises a variable speed fan, adjustable door frames, nylon screens and sensitive pressure measuring devices, which are used in conjunction with in house computer software to evaluate leaks and determine hold time characteristics.’

The test involves fitting an adjustable door frame and nylon screen within the frame of a doorway to the enclosure. A portable variable speed fan is fitted within the nylon screen. Instrumentation is connected to the fan and within the enclosure. By adjusting the speed and orientation of the fan within the screen a series of pressurisation and depressurisation readings are taken to determine the characteristics of the enclosure.

The position in which the front or rear of the variable speed is fitted within the nylon screen determines the type of test to be performed.

A wide variety of applications

Automatic Fire & Integrated Solutions engineers can accurately test almost any size and shape of space, from a small turbine enclosure to a mainframe computer suite, quickly and unobtrusively.