Global provider of fiber optic sensing solutions, Bandweaver Technologies will lead the opening webinar session of Tunnel and Metro Fire Protection 2021 – ‘Mitigating fire risk of tunnels: systems approach to underground safety’. The technically-lead webinar series will take place from 22-26th March and is accessible to the global rail community via video conferencing.
The presentation, to be delivered by Bandweaver’s Managing Director, Richard Kluth, will take place on Monday 22nd March 2021 at 11:00AM CET and cover the following areas:
- Understanding a Fibre-Optic Distributed Temperature Sensor (DTS) System
- The advantages as an intelligent temperature profiling system for tunnels
- Exploring the ability of such a system to produce early and reliable alarm annunciations combined with maximum false alarm rejection
- Integration into tunnel safety management systems and examples of current system design topologies
Due to the specific need for a low maintenance solution, low cost of ownership, high reliability and effective fire detection, DTS technology is well suited to road and rail tunnel applications. In such vast, unmanned areas, accurately detecting the size, direction and location of a fire is vital to ensuring an appropriate response. Bandweaver’s DTS linear heat detection system operates as a combination fixed temperature and rate-of-rise heat detector over the entire cable route.
During the webinar presentation, Richard will explain how a DTS solution is highly reliable and accurate, reduces false alarms and has early detection capabilities for fire or excess heat.
With LHD systems the system provides a full temperature profile with points every 0.5m along a distance of up to 10km per unit. In traditional detection systems, if the seat of the fire does not happen to be immediately under a point type sensor, the fire can no longer be detected with certainty, mainly due to detector spacing.
As well as primary tunnel monitoring, the technology has distinct advantages through the station platform and concourse as well. The sensing cable can be fed through the assets to be protected, which may include station platforms, escalators, ceiling and floor void spaces, switch rooms, power cables as well as the tunnels used by the rolling stock. The cable can then be divided into multiple fire detection zones using management software, where each zone can have its own unique characteristic alarm thresholds assigned to it, so the system is extremely flexible in this regard.