[AusNOG] Hypoxic Fire Suppression [was Global Switch]

[Matt Perkins]

That's good info Bevan,
I wonder if the building code requires that fresh air be injected into 
the entire building or all rooms within the building. I wonder if 
Hypoxic fire prevention could be employed in small computer room type 
environments or data centers where division into smaller rooms or where 
cold/hot aisle for example. I guess not useful  information for centers 
with large floor plates but may be useful in power room environments or 
small server rooms etc.  If the building code allows.

Operating theaters for example dont have fresh air injected into them. 
It's a highly filtered air that's injected from the outer rooms 
surrounding the theater through HEPA and active charcoal. What counts as 
fresh air.

These guys make an interesting device. 
http://altitudetraining.com/prevenex/products/airunit

Matt.


    On 13/01/14 7:07 PM, Bevan Slattery wrote:
>
>
> From: Tony de Francesco <tonyd at pue.com.au <mailto:tonyd at pue.com.au>>
>
> > Yes but Inergen is not used in large DCs because of the volume required.
>
> Simply not correct.  Most large DC's segregate spaces to allow full 
> discharge in a specific area.
>
> > The European system is a hypoxic system at low pressure. Very different to dumping a whole bunch of gas through high 
> pressure nozzles.
>
> Challenge with this system in Australia (which I looked at early in 
> NEXTDC days) was that in Australia you need to continually supply 
> fresh air to a DC under the building code.  It is difficult to 
> continually deliver a hypoxic environment across a large facility 
> considering the Australian standards and the need to continually 
> extract O2/Inject N2 into the air supply.
>
> Hypoxic systems are typically used in things like ship engine rooms to 
> reduce the risk of catastrophic fire or in environments with low 
> traffic flow (archives).  In a colocation environment in Australia I 
> couldn't get an insurer to get their head around having staff and 
> customers in a facility with a reduced O2, let alone the technical 
> issues around a requirement to continually alter the air mix due to 
> the building code.
>
> So if you want to maintain a lower level of O2 you had to operate the 
> Agent Generator (essentially lower O2 in a bottle) 24/7 to maintain 
> the O2 levels at the Fire Type 2 levels.  The amount of fresh air 
> required in a 20,000m facility that had a volumetric size of 100 
> megalitres is "significant".  Very significant.
>
> All in all it wasn't technically or commercially viable for NEXTDC at 
> the time to provide a continuous hypoxic environment.  This may have 
> changed.  There was some investigation into using an agent generator 
> to create the refill in case of discharge removing the need for a 
> refill from alternate gas suppliers.  But the equipment needed to 
> refill 20 megalitres (hall discharge +1) was significant and the 
> bottles required was considerably greater from memory.  Also not all 
> gas discharge systems are as high pressure these days so you may want 
> to check out the latest to ensure your points are valid.
>
> Cheers
>
> [b]
>
>
>
>
>
>
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