Diesel-discriminating detector response to smoldering fires

Journal Article · Fri Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1993 · Information Circular - United States, Bureau of Mines; (United States)

OSTI ID:5756166

Egan, M R ^[1]

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1. Pittsburgh Research Center, PA (United States)

Reliable fire detection is essential for both safe evacuation and containment or extinguishment. In order to increase reliability by reducing the number of nuisance fire alarms in underground mines that use diesel-powered equipment, the U.S. Bureau of Mines has developed a diesel-discriminating fire detector (DDD). It was designed to discriminate between smoke produced by a fire and the smoke-laden exhaust of a diesel engine. Experiments were conducted by the Bureau to compare the smoke detection capabilities of the DDD with those of conventional fire detectors in response to smoldering coal and conveyor belting. A comparison was made among the alarm times of a carbon monoxide (CO) detector with an alarm threshold of 5 ppm, a smoke detector with an optical density alarm threshold of 0.044 m[sup [minus]1], and the DDD with an alarm threshold of 0.025 V. The results show that the DDD will reliably detect developing coal and conveyor belt fires. The average time delay separating the DDD alarm from the first detector to alarm was 76 s for smoldering conveyor belt and 65 s for smoldering coal. The longest time delay between the response of the DDD and the first detector to alarm was approximately 120 s.

• OSTI ID: 5756166
• Journal Information: Information Circular - United States, Bureau of Mines; (United States), Journal Name: Information Circular - United States, Bureau of Mines; (United States) Vol. 9353; ISSN XIMIAL; ISSN 0096-1914
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT
012034* -- Coal
Lignite
& Peat-- Underground Mining-- Automation
Monitoring
& Control-- (1987-)
016000 -- Coal
Lignite
& Peat-- Health & Safety
COAL MINES
COAL MINING
DIESEL ENGINES
ENGINES
EXHAUST GASES
FIRE DETECTORS
FIRE PREVENTION
FIRES
FLUIDS
GASEOUS WASTES
GASES
HAZARDS
HEAT ENGINES
INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINES
MINES
MINING
OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY
PERFORMANCE
SAFETY
SMOKE DETECTORS
UNDERGROUND FACILITIES
UNDERGROUND MINING
WASTES