Evaluation of the use of ultrasound for pressure measurement in fire suppression cylinders

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Fire safety technology and processes continue to advance. Many modern fire suppressionsystems make use of “clean agents” delivered in gaseous form, however the effectiveness ofthese systems is dependent on there being adequate pressure within a fire cylinder to deliverthe clean agent. Traditional methods of checking these systems are costly and timeconsuming, especially for large scale operations such as high rise buildings, oil rigs or datacentres which may have potentially hundreds of cylinders in a single system. Coltraco, anestablished UK manufacturer drawing on research with the University of Durham (DU) andWarwick (Centre for Industrial Ultrasonics – CIU), will pioneer the concept of a constant, noninvasivecylinder Ultrasonic Pressure Monitoring (UPM) system to give on site and remotemonitoring of fire suppression installations 24 hours per day 7 days a week on the basis of asuccessful 18 month project to investigate the relationship between ultrasonic pulse return andgas contained within a cylinder. Such a system will be the first in the world and wouldprovide a significant advance in fire safety with particular importance in high value buildingsand environmentally sensitive and hazardous industrial processes.