Regular testing and upkeep ensure a most service life and practical and failure-related security of technical home equipment. The same applies to foam-based hearth extinguishing methods and the froth proportioners put in in them.
Up to now, such testing and maintenance have required the presence of personnel on-site. However, it will be simpler and more cost-efficient for extinguishing system operators if this was possible in a fully automated and remote-controlled method. For example, this would additionally make common maintenance personnel journey to remotely positioned proportioners redundant. In addition, this may be certain that requirements by the producer, standards and sets of laws are noticed without any functional deviations and unsuitable time intervals.
The remote testing system throughout the ‘Smart Proportioner’ improvement framework has been created only for this purpose. It is an advancement of the distant monitoring system.
Brief overview of the remote monitoring system
The remote monitoring system is used for proportioner monitoring in testing mode throughout maintenance and live firefighting operations.
In the course of remote monitoring, the proportioning price and different working parameters are decided, recorded and forwarded to the system operator if essential. Thus, the smooth performance and operational readiness of the system are monitored and ensured this way.
A distant monitoring system consists of a control system, together with an elective native show unit (HMI) if applicable, and sensor expertise. The sensor expertise consists of, as a minimum, the chance to determine the water motor’s number of revolutions and to determine the froth agent circulate fee. These values are used to calculate the proportioning fee. This determine is the core attribute in the course of the operation and testing of a foam proportioner. Further sensor expertise is available on an optional basis.
The remote monitoring system helps the operating and repair personnel on-site. It can also be appropriate for remote monitoring of the froth proportioner.
However, it is a fundamental incontrovertible fact that personnel are all the time essential to hold out the maintenance work or the proportioning rate testing on-site because the system performs a monitoring role solely. It doesn’t actively work together with the functioning of the proportioner.
In the course of remote monitoring, the proportioning price and different operating parameters are determined, displayed and forwarded. Images equipped by Author / Contributor
Evolution – from remote monitoring to remote testing
The query is how to further minimize the maintenance effort on foam proportioners.
The solution lies within the remote testing system, the next step of the intelligent FireDos proportioners. The remote testing system permits monitoring of the proportioner and individual maintenance, including proportioning fee testing.
The condition of the proportioner could be checked with out having to begin out up the hearth extinguishing system. เกจวัดแรงดัน are required on-site. Proportioners in a distant place or that are solely rarely inspected by personnel on-site could be checked with out maintenance workers and related bills, similar to journey expenditure. In explicit, growing the testing interval is possible without extra efforts. The instruction handbook for FireDos proportioners requires common starting-up, utilizing the service crank manually as a minimum. This is meant to prevent deposits inside the equipment, impairing its ease of movement and thus conserving the proportioner’s performance. The remote testing system can undertake these regular movements and take a look at the proportioning fee, growing the service life and practical security of the proportioner.
What is the design of a distant testing system?
The remote testing system is generally primarily based upon the distant monitoring system. It is, nevertheless, particularly prolonged by way of actuators. This is as a outcome of they permit the fully impartial operation of the distant testing system; i.e., the proportioning rate of the proportioner is examined without activating the water pumps of the hearth extinguishing system.
The core components embody 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 could have no interference with the proportioner’s functionality in the case of a fireplace. This method, some great benefits of the mechanical proportioning precept are preserved.
How does the remote testing system work, and how can the proportioning rate be checked without activating the water pumps?
If in ready-to-operate mode, the proportioner is always within the proportioning place. Upon initiation of an automatic testing course of, regardless of if after an outlined time interval, upon request by way of a cloud resolution or from the hearth extinguishing system/a native operator, the proportioner is put into testing operation. Specifically, the management system places the proportioner into testing operation utilizing an electrically actuated ball valve drive whereas the foam agent is not blended into the extinguishing water however 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 entire proportioner at its start-up move price. The start-up circulate price is the bottom working level of a proportioner to achieve its nominal proportioning fee.
Due to the external electrical drive, the water motor works like a pump and generates a water move 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 fireplace extinguishing system is due to this fact not influenced when the proportioner is examined.
As the extinguishing water move rate simulated by the external drive can be identified due to the recognized ratio of the water motor’s variety of revolutions and the water move price, just the froth agent move fee must be determined to allow the next calculation of the proportioning rate. This is completed by a volumetric circulate meter between the proportioning pump’s outlet and the ball valve, which switches between returning and proportioning mode. This allows willpower of the foam agent move price, each in testing mode and whereas proportioning in case of an alarm.
The proportioning rate is decided according to the formulation as required within the requirements and rules EN 13565-1, NFPA 11, FM 4-12, and the Nordtest NT Fire 042 methodology.
Foam agent circulate price [l/min]
(Extinguishing water move rate x one hundred = proportioning fee %+ foam agent move rate) [l/min]
After completion of the testing process, the electric drive of the proportioner stops, the bypass line is closed, and the proportioner is returned to proportioning mode.
Sensor know-how installed as an extra choice or inside the electric drive allows obtaining further info and conclusions about the state and situation of the respective unit. It is checked, for example, whether the ball valves are in their right positions or sufficient oil is within the crankshaft housing of the proportioning pump. In addition, the pressure values at the pump inlet/outlet and the strain on the water motor are recorded. Finally, measuring the complete system’s torque and the flow fee inside the bypass line allows checking the general situation of the proportioner.
The knowledge could be displayed regionally or via a cloud resolution. Controlling the upkeep operation can additionally be attainable via both interfaces.
What if there is an alarm during a testing process?
An essential question is: Does the proportioner work without any limitations and as ordinary if there might be an alarm? The answer is: Yes!
The distant testing system is designed in such a means that extinguishing water can flow via the water motor and begin it up at any time, even when the electrical drive is working on the similar time. In addition, a singular, fully automated and purely mechanical decoupling mechanism ensures that the electrical drive doesn’t interfere with the proportioner’s functioning and readiness to function.
In case of an alarm, the ball valves in the bypass line and those for switching between returning and proportioning are immediately switched so that the proportioner is in proportioning mode for firefighting. Thus, the management system is put into alarm mode on this case. This alarm mode causes the disabling of all features not necessary at that second and all ball valves to be set to their right place.
Therefore, in case of an alarm throughout testing operation, the ball valves switch to their appropriate position absolutely routinely and the electrical drive is switched off. Even if the electric drive remains to be working 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 control system prevents re-activation of the electrical drive or any unintended ball valve switching.
What benefits does a distant testing system provide?
Compared with normal proportioners and those geared up with a distant monitoring system, a distant testing system offers various benefits. They function the following:
ν Proportione
Display view for testing operation of the FireDos remote testing system. Images provided by Author / Contributor
cian need to be on-site.
Regular proportioning price testing: Regular proportioning rate testing ensures optimum functioning of the proportioner in case of a hearth. If the proportioning rate is merely too low, the extinguishing success can be compromised. Overdosing causes the foam agent to be consumed faster than supposed, resulting in the premature ending of the foam operation.
Increasing useful and failure safety because of increased testing intervals: An increased test interval causes the proportioner to be examined fully 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 inside the water motor.
Early fault detection and diagnostics: Faults in the proportioner or parts of the extinguishing system, instantly affecting the proportioner’s performance, can be recognized at an early stage of time. This contains, for example, pressure variations in the extinguishing water line or a jammed suction line.
Inclusion of all capabilities and advantages of the distant monitoring system: All functions and benefits of the remote monitoring system are additionally present within the remote testing system, i.e. all relevant working parameters are recorded and processed constantly and correctly 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 possible to detect faults even earlier. This means, maintenance and repairs can take place before any more critical damage occurs. The elevated performance and fault safety of the proportioner ensures that the service life of the proportioners is maximized and the probability of a failure is minimized. As a result, lowered service and operating workforce on-site scale back prices considerably, notably if the proportioner is situated in a distant place. In addition, functional testing of the proportioner allows early identification, evaluation and possibly limiting a fault remotely. This makes service visits more environment friendly and due to this fact more cost-effective.
Summary and prospect
The distant monitoring system already supplies varied advantages and helps reduce prices, nevertheless it can’t cut back the workforce required on-site.
The distant testing system is a solution for reducing upkeep necessities. It is the following evolution in the middle of creating clever FireDos proportioners.
The distant testing system permits decreasing the workforce required on-site to a minimal, along with shorter testing intervals and increased failure safety. This will increase the proportioner’s service life.
If the proportioner is in a fault-free state, no further maintenance by personnel on-site is critical, other than an oil change. The oil change may be carried out by the operator’s personnel, too, easily and with none deeper data of the operating precept of proportioners. If a service go to or restore ought to nonetheless turn into needed, remote 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 intelligent digital upgrade. Thus, the benefits from both technology fields are mixed without compromising the performance of mechanical FireDos proportioners.
For more data, go to www.firedos.com
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