I think it all comes down to your local fire marshal and your insurance company. Our insurance company didn't know what an anechoic chamber was, so they did a search and found insurance claims from 20 years ago where chambers caught fire because companies were pumping too much rf energy into the cones which got hot enough to catch fire. So, if you can convince them you are not going to use enough power to heat up the cones, you may get away without or with a simpler fire control system.
In our 10 meter chamber, we have 28 telescopic sprinkler heads in a pre-activated deluge valve system (valve trips by a smoke sampling detector system which charges the pipes with water pushing the heads down, then the sprinkler heads would have to get hot enough to open). The sprinkler system comes directly off an 8" water main and can dump 940 gallons of water per minute. I think we would drown before we would burn. The interior parts of the floor panels in our chamber are suppose to be made out of marine plywood to be able to handle water incase the sprinkler system falsely dumps, but it would really be a mess if that happens. Tripping the water value is our biggest worry here in the lab for we all know it could be our jobs if that happened. If the valve falsely tripped and none of the seals leaked we would have to have to hire a crew to come out and drain the system, replace all the seals and push the heads back up above the chamber. We figure the down time would be 2-4 weeks. We have setoff the smoke detection system (Vesda system) three times in the last 10 years, but it has a delay giving us 30 seconds to hit the bypass (isolate) button before it trips the water valve. Thank goodness. It takes very little to trip the Vesda system. The first time was a resister on a PC card put out a puff of smoke, then a vacuum pump on a product we were testing was putting oil vapor into the air that set it off, and last a unit that had a small heating coil (like a toaster) that burned the dust off the coils set it off. No wonder I have trouble sleeping at night. Good luck, The Other Brian From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of [email protected] Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2008 6:37 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Sprinkler Systems in Anechoic Chambers I have a question regarding sprinkler systems in Anechoic chambers. Are there any list members with an opinion on the matter? I have a chamber I am installing and I am working with the fire safety group to determine if we have to install sprinklers. Have any of you been able to get away without installing sprinklers in your chambers? Any input would be appreciated. Thanks, Cody - This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to [email protected] Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas [email protected] Mike Cantwell [email protected] For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher: [email protected] David Heald: [email protected] All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc LECO Corporation Notice: This communication may contain confidential information intended for the named recipient(s) only. If you received this by mistake, please destroy it and notify us of the error. Thank you. - This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to [email protected] Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas [email protected] Mike Cantwell [email protected] For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher: [email protected] David Heald: [email protected] All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc
