SMART Sprinkler Protection for Highly Challenging Fires—Part 1: System Design and Function Evaluation

An experimental study was conducted to prove the concept of a new protection system—a sprinkler system that uses Simultaneous Monitoring, Assessment and Response Technology (SMART). The present work focuses on the system design and function evaluation at the component level. The objective is to demonstrate the feasibility that the SMART sprinkler system can provide adequate protection to highly challenging fires. The new protection system has several key functions including multi-sensor detection, real-time fire location calculation, dynamic sprinkler activation and wireless communication coordinating the system components. A series of fire detection, sprinkler activation and fire suppression tests were carried out to evaluate these system functions. Results show that a combination of smoke and temperature sensors can detect the fire at a very early stage, with the fire size reduced by one order of magnitude, and provide sufficient data to locate the fire. A thermal centroid based algorithm can determine the fire location within less than 50% of the sprinkler spacing on average. The sprinkler activation (six units) concentrating water discharge in the vicinity of the fire can suppress and even extinguish the fire under certain experimental conditions. These results confirm that the design objectives have been achieved. The experimental data also provide crucial information to assess system performance in full-scale tests.