Regular testing and maintenance ensure a most service life and practical and failure-related security of technical home equipment. The identical applies to foam-based hearth extinguishing systems and the foam proportioners installed in them.
Up to now, such testing and maintenance have required the presence of personnel on-site. However, it will be easier and more cost-efficient for extinguishing system operators if this was possible in a completely computerized and remote-controlled method. For example, this would additionally make common maintenance personnel travel to remotely situated proportioners redundant. In addition, this is able to make positive that requirements by the producer, requirements and units of laws are observed without any functional deviations and unsuitable time intervals.
The remote testing system within the ‘Smart Proportioner’ development framework has been created only for this purpose. It is an development of the remote monitoring system.
Brief overview of the remote monitoring system
The remote monitoring system is used for proportioner monitoring in testing mode during upkeep and stay firefighting operations.
In the course of remote monitoring, the proportioning rate and other operating parameters are determined, recorded and forwarded to the system operator if needed. Thus, the graceful functionality and operational readiness of the system are monitored and ensured this way.
A distant monitoring system consists of a control system, including an elective local display unit (HMI) if relevant, and sensor expertise. The sensor expertise consists of, as a minimum, the chance to determine the water motor’s variety of revolutions and to determine the foam agent circulate rate. These values are used to calculate the proportioning fee. This determine is the core attribute during the operation and testing of a foam proportioner. Further sensor expertise is out there on an optional foundation.
The distant monitoring system helps the operating and service personnel on-site. It can also be appropriate for distant monitoring of the froth proportioner.
However, it’s a primary incontrovertible reality that personnel are at all times necessary to hold out the upkeep work or the proportioning fee testing on-site because the system plays a monitoring role only. It doesn’t actively work together with the functioning of the proportioner.
In the course of remote monitoring, the proportioning fee and different operating parameters are decided, displayed and forwarded. Images equipped by Author / Contributor
Evolution – from distant monitoring to remote testing
The query is tips on how to additional minimize the upkeep effort on foam proportioners.
The solution lies in the distant testing system, the subsequent step of the clever FireDos proportioners. The remote testing system allows monitoring of the proportioner and particular person maintenance, including proportioning rate testing.
The condition of the proportioner may be checked without having to begin up the fire extinguishing system. No personnel are required on-site. Proportioners in a remote place or which are solely rarely inspected by personnel on-site could be checked with out maintenance employees and related expenses, such as journey expenditure. In particular, rising the testing interval is feasible with out additional efforts. The instruction handbook for FireDos proportioners requires common starting-up, using the service crank manually as a minimum. เกจวัดแรงดันถังลม is meant to stop deposits inside the tools, impairing its ease of motion and thus conserving the proportioner’s performance. The distant testing system can undertake these common actions and check the proportioning fee, growing the service life and practical safety of the proportioner.
What is the design of a remote testing system?
The distant testing system is usually primarily based upon the distant monitoring system. It is, nevertheless, significantly extended by means of actuators. This is as a end result of they enable the fully impartial operation of the remote testing system; i.e., the proportioning fee of the proportioner is tested without activating the water pumps of the fire extinguishing system.
The core components include a central management system, with an elective HMI, sensor know-how, electrical ball valve drives, an electrical drive for the proportioner and a bypass line past the water motor.
The connection of the electrical drive and the proportioner is designed so that the electrical drive will have no interference with the proportioner’s performance within the case of a fireplace. This way, the advantages of the mechanical proportioning precept are preserved.
How does the remote testing system work, and how can the proportioning fee be checked with out activating the water pumps?
If in ready-to-operate mode, the proportioner is always within the proportioning position. Upon initiation of an automated testing process, irrespective of if after an outlined time interval, upon request via a cloud solution or from the fireplace extinguishing system/a native operator, the proportioner is put into testing operation. Specifically, the management system puts the proportioner into testing operation using an electrically actuated ball valve drive while the foam agent isn’t mixed into the extinguishing water but returned to the foam agent tank. At the same time, it opens the electrically actuated ball valve in the bypass line previous the water motor. Next, the electric drive of the proportioner is activated, driving the complete proportioner at its start-up flow rate. The start-up move rate is the lowest working level of a proportioner to succeed in its nominal proportioning fee.
Due to the exterior electrical drive, the water motor works like a pump and generates a water flow by way of the bypass from the water motor’s outlet to the water motor’s inlet. The operation causes no change of stress in the extinguishing water line. The hearth extinguishing system is due to this fact not influenced when the proportioner is tested.
As the extinguishing water move price simulated by the exterior drive can additionally be recognized as a result of recognized ratio of the water motor’s variety of revolutions and the water move price, just the foam agent circulate fee should be determined to permit the next calculation of the proportioning rate. This is finished by a volumetric move meter between the proportioning pump’s outlet and the ball valve, which switches between returning and proportioning mode. This allows willpower of the froth agent circulate rate, both in testing mode and whereas proportioning in case of an alarm.
The proportioning fee is set according to the method as required within the requirements and rules EN 13565-1, NFPA 11, FM 4-12, and the Nordtest NT Fire 042 method.
Foam agent circulate fee [l/min]
(Extinguishing water move price x one hundred = proportioning fee %+ foam agent move rate) [l/min]
After completion of the testing process, the electrical drive of the proportioner stops, the bypass line is closed, and the proportioner is returned to proportioning mode.
Sensor technology put in as an extra choice or inside the electrical drive permits acquiring additional data and conclusions about the state and condition of the respective unit. It is checked, for instance, whether or not the ball valves are of their correct positions or adequate oil is in the crankshaft housing of the proportioning pump. In addition, the stress values at the pump inlet/outlet and the strain at the water motor are recorded. Finally, measuring the complete system’s torque and the move fee contained in the bypass line allows checking the final condition of the proportioner.
The information can be displayed locally or through a cloud solution. Controlling the upkeep operation is also attainable through each interfaces.
What if there is an alarm during a testing process?
An essential query is: Does the proportioner work without any limitations and as ordinary if there’s an alarm? The reply is: Yes!
The remote testing system is designed in such a means that extinguishing water can flow by way of the water motor and start it up at any time, even when the electrical drive is working at the same time. In addition, a novel, absolutely automatic and purely mechanical decoupling mechanism ensures that the electrical drive doesn’t intervene with the proportioner’s functioning and readiness to function.
In case of an alarm, the ball valves within the bypass line and people for switching between returning and proportioning are immediately switched in order that the proportioner is in proportioning mode for firefighting. Thus, the control system is put into alarm mode in this case. This alarm mode causes the disabling of all capabilities not essential at that moment and all ball valves to be set to their appropriate place.
Therefore, in case of an alarm throughout testing operation, the ball valves switch to their appropriate position fully mechanically and the electrical drive is switched off. Even if the electric drive continues to be running or coming to a cease, the extinguishing water can move via the water motor and drive the proportioning pump without limitations. The alarm mode of the management system prevents re-activation of the electrical drive or any unintended ball valve switching.
What advantages does a distant testing system provide?
Compared with normal proportioners and those outfitted with a remote monitoring system, a distant testing system provides numerous advantages. They characteristic the next:
ν Proportione
Display view for testing operation of the FireDos remote testing system. Images supplied by Author / Contributor
cian should be on-site.
Regular proportioning fee testing: Regular proportioning fee testing ensures optimum functioning of the proportioner in case of a fire. If the proportioning price is merely too low, the extinguishing success could be compromised. Overdosing causes the foam agent to be consumed quicker than meant, resulting in the untimely ending of the foam operation.
Increasing practical and failure security because of increased testing intervals: An elevated check interval causes the proportioner to be examined totally routinely at shorter intervals of time. This notably reduces the danger of a failure remaining undetected for an extended time frame. In addition, more frequent testing prevents the formation of deposits contained in the water motor.
Early fault detection and diagnostics: Faults within the proportioner or parts of the extinguishing system, immediately affecting the proportioner’s performance, could be recognized at an early stage of time. This includes, for example, stress variations within the extinguishing water line or a jammed suction line.
Inclusion of all features and advantages of the distant monitoring system: All capabilities and benefits of the remote monitoring system are additionally current within the distant testing system, i.e. all relevant working parameters are recorded and processed repeatedly and accurately in addition to documented in a log file. In addition, all knowledge are displayed by a visualization.
Reduction of costs: Regular useful testing makes it potential to detect faults even earlier. This method, upkeep and repairs can happen earlier than any extra critical damage happens. The elevated functionality and fault safety of the proportioner ensures that the service lifetime of the proportioners is maximized and the chance of a failure is minimized. As a result, lowered service and working workforce on-site cut back prices considerably, notably if the proportioner is located in a distant place. In addition, useful testing of the proportioner allows early identification, analysis and presumably limiting a fault remotely. This makes service visits extra efficient and due to this fact more cost-effective.
Summary and prospect
The remote monitoring system already offers various advantages and helps scale back prices, nevertheless it can not cut back the workforce required on-site.
The remote testing system is an answer for lowering upkeep requirements. It is the next evolution in the course of developing clever FireDos proportioners.
The remote testing system allows lowering the workforce required on-site to a minimum, along with shorter testing intervals and elevated failure security. This increases the proportioner’s service life.
If the proportioner is in a fault-free state, no additional maintenance by personnel on-site is critical, other than an oil change. The oil change could be carried out by the operator’s personnel, too, simply and with none deeper data of the operating principle of proportioners. If a service go to or restore ought to nonetheless turn out to be essential, distant monitoring and early fault detection will make the planning and completion of such work more efficient.
Like the remote monitoring system, the distant testing system is an optimum symbiosis of mechanical proportioners and an clever electronic upgrade. Thus, the benefits from each technology fields are combined with out compromising the performance of mechanical FireDos proportioners.
For extra info, go to www.firedos.com
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