FIRE PROTECTION ANALYSIS PROJECT – 9220 ZANZIBAR LANE MAPLE GROVE, MN

This report contains an analysis of the life safety and fire protection features of a four-story apartment building in Maple Grove, Minnesota. The report is a part of the final project intended to meet the requirements for the Culminating Experience of the California Polytechnic Master of Science Fire Protection Engineering Program. The apartment building chosen for the analysis is a mixed-use four-story wood-framed structure. The first floor of this structure includes office space for building management, a meeting space, and various electrical and mechanical spaces as well as apartments. There are exit stairways on each end of the structure extending up all four floors, and a center stairway extending up only to the second floor. There is a parking garage in the basement that is comprised of cinder block walls, steel girders for support above, and metal pan with poured concrete for the garage ceiling. The building is fully sprinklered throughout. This report contains analysis of the prescriptive code requirements as well as the fire protection and life safety features of the apartment structure. Topics discussed include means of egress, fire suppression system, fire alarm and detection and structural fire protection. This report evaluates the International Code Council model building and fire codes and the National Fire Protection Associations codes and standards as a prescriptive code analysis for this multi-tenant apartment building. The building is found to be in compliance with the documented codes and standards in effect at the time of building design and assembly. This report also contains a performance-based evaluation. The performance-based evaluation included in Section 7 of the report describes two design fire scenarios to determine the capability of occupants to safely evacuate in the event of the fire scenario. Both fire scenarios are evaluated for performance-based analysis. Three potential scenarios are as follows: 1) An occupancy-specific design fire scenario that is representative of a typical fire for the occupancy; 2) A fire that starts in a normally unoccupied room that may endanger large numbers of occupants; 3) The most severe fire resulting from the largest possible fuel load characteristic of the normal operation of the building. Selected Design Fire Scenario 1: The design fire involves a kitchen fire in a fourth story apartment unit adjacent to an east egress stairwell. This kitchen fire is based on unattended oil on a cook top igniting and enveloping the combustible kitchen elements, spreading to the living room and dining room. The projected heat release rate maximizes at 4.0 MW with a time to peak following the incipient phase estimated at 136 seconds. This fire scenario also includes fire sprinkler heads located as documented on the design drawings, as well as a fire scenario with the apartment door open and closed to evaluate the impact on smoke spread into the hallway which is a common access egress path. Tenability criteria with all safety features engaged was not exceeded at any point during the simulation for this design fire. The available safe egress time (ASET) exceeded the model run time of 450 seconds. Selected Design Fire Scenario 2: The second design fire involves a fire within the trash room on the first floor, which is adjacent to the center stairway, the elevator, and in close proximity to the east stairway. The fire assumes plastic, wood, and other cellulose materials such as cardboard with a projected maximum heat release rate of 4.5 MW with a t2 ramp up curve equivalent to 0.047 kW/s2. An additional issue is the trash chute that extends up all four floors. This is a metal lined chute with a temperature-dependent release mechanism. The room is equipped with smoke detection and fire sprinklers, in addition to the fusible link for the trash chute. The fire is contained within the room for the duration of the fire scenario and the fusible link to the trash chute activates at 165° F. All egress paths in the vicinity of this space maintain tenability during the 9-minute FDS run time of the model

Multi-sensor fire detection system using an Arduino Uno microcontroller

Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Information Technology (MSIT) at Strathmore UniversityUntimely response, constrained navigation due to poor urban planning and traffic jams, highly flammable construction materials, insufficient capacity by the fire department and lack of access to automated fire detection systems by residents due to purchasing costs are among the factors that affect fire-fighting services in Kenya and across the African continent. The aftermath of a fire outbreak could very acute leading to widespread loss of property and loss of lives. Residential areas contain numerous flammable materials such as clothing, books, wooden cabinets, beddings and plastics while also housing sources of ignition that include cooking gas and electronic devices thus are prone to severe fire accidents. Fire outbreaks have an inception period of about 3 to 5 minutes which is the optimal time to detect it and put it out after which it might get out of control.This implies that timely identification of a potential fire outbreak is crucial to managing it.Currently, most residential establishments as well as business premises are not fitted with fire detection systems owing to lack of awareness, high purchasing costs and inefficiency of the devices given the high false alarm rates which have a cost attached to them such as the unnecessary deployment of fire-fighting personnel. The fire detection devices are highly susceptible to false alarms because reliance on one sensor that reads only one percept from the environment for instance smoke or heat. However, the advancement of the Internet-of-Things has led to the development of ‘smart’ technologies where multiple sensors can be incorporated into objects like fire detectors additionally enabling them to communicate wirelessly with other objects and carry out programmed tasks. This research aimed at proposing a prototype of a fire detection system using a multi-sensor approach. This research applied rapid prototyping methodology for development of the prototype. Data was collected from secondary sources and experimentation.The prototype used an MQ2 gas sensor, a Grove temperature sensor, a Grove light sensor and an Arduino microcontroller, a GSM and GPS shield. In the event of a fire outbreak, the device will be able to send an SMS alert to the home owner as well as the firefighting department with GPS coordinates of the residence. The prototype recorded 83% success rate and 17% false alarm rate based on 6 test cases of which only one failed

Distributed sensing solution for home efficiency tracking

With the rapid increase of smart devices, keeping track of household consumptions is a service that starts to be automated and a need that is becoming more and more constant. In the middle of the 21st century, more and more measures are being debated that can make the world a more sustainable place, and this is part of each one of us, from our own homes. It is through the Internet of Things and its vast concept of connecting all devices, allowing them to communicate with each other, that it is possible to convert a normal home into a smart home in a simple and revolutionary way. This dissertation presents a proposal for a system based on wireless sensor networks designed for the purpose of monitoring and controlling environment parameters of a smart home. In order to obtain an efficient and inexpensive system, a study was made to select the best hardware and software solutions for this system, that also allows the user, through an Android application, to view all the information collected by the sensors, and consequently act in a way to make his home more sustainable. The main advantages of this system, which distinguishes it from the others, are its small dimensions, its efficiency and the low cost associated. In addition, it is a practical system that allows easy installation and it can interact with the surrounding environment.Com a rápida evolução da tecnologia e dos dispositivos inteligentes, monitorizar os consumos domésticos é cada vez mais uma necessidade constante e que começa a ser feita de forma automática. Em pleno século XXI cada vez mais, são debatidas medidas para tornar o planeta um local mais sustentável, e isso depende de cada um de nós, a partir das nossas próprias. É através do conceito da Internet das Coisas e do seu vasto conceito de conectar dispositivos, permitindo que estes comuniquem uns com os outros, que se torna possível converter uma casa normal numa casa inteligente de uma forma simples e revolucionária. Esta dissertação apresenta a proposta de um sistema baseado numa rede de sensores sem fios, desenhada com o propósito de monitorizar e controlar os parâmetros ambientais de uma casa. De forma a obter um sistema eficiente e de baixo custo, foi feito um estudo para selecionar as melhores soluções de hardware e software para este sistema, permitindo ao utilizador, através de uma aplicação Android visualizar toda a informação, obtida pelos sensores, e consequentemente tomar decisões que tornem a sua casa mais sustentável. A principal vantagem deste sistema, que o distingue dos outros, é que todos os componentes são pequenos, eficientes, com um baixo custo. Para além disso, é um sistema prático que permite uma fácil instalação e que se envolve com o meio à sua volta

Engineered Wood Products for Construction

Wood is a gift from nature. It is a sustainable and renewable bio-composite material that possesses a natural ability to mitigate carbon dioxide. However, due to deforestation and climate change, it has become necessary to develop alternative building and construction materials. Engineered wood products (EWPs) such as parallel strand lumber, laminated veneer lumber, and cross-laminated timber are promising substitutions for conventional lumber products. This book presents a comprehensive overview of EWPs, including information on their classification, design, synthesis, properties, and more. It is divided into two sections: “General Overviews and Applications of EWPs” and “Recent Research and Development of EWPs”. The book is a valuable reference for manufacturers, engineers, architects, builders, researchers, and students in the field of construction

2017 Annual report Bedford, New Hampshire.

This is an annual report containing vital statistics for a town/city in the state of New Hampshire

Introduction to FireGrid

Chapter 1 in the book: The Dalmarnock Fire Tests: Experiments and Modelling, Edited by G. Rein, C. Abecassis Empis and R. Carvel, Published by the School of Engineering and Electronics, University of Edinburgh, 2007. ISBN 978-0-9557497-0-4FireGrid is an ambitious and innovative project, seeking to develop the technology to support a new way of managing emergency response in the modern built environment. Specific novel aspects include the integration of diverse modelling tools for fire, structural response and egress, data assimilation strategies for leveraging these model predictions via real-time feeds of sensor data, exploitation of robust self-organising wireless sensor networks, high-speed processing using grid/HPC infrastructures with ‘on-demand’ access of remote resources, and application of intelligent C&C algorithms. The Dalmarnock fire tests have provided a useful basis for the demonstration and discussion of these concepts and technologies, driving initial integration work and highlighting the potential benefits of such a system