How is the F&G system different from a fire alarm system?
You may have wondered what the difference is between a gas and fire monitoring system and a fire alarm system, which makes this equipment preferable to a fire alarm system for use in industrial environments.
The answer to this question lies in the different conditions of industrial and urban environments and the sensitivity of protecting these environments. Throughout the processing plants and industrial environments that have been briefly mentioned, people face various risks. For example, chemical facilities always typically involve potential hazards, from the toxicity and reactivity of raw materials, to the release of energy from chemical reactions, high temperatures, high pressures, etc. In addition, in most facilities and factories there are dusts in the air that are prone to ignition and pose a risk.
In such situations, points such as the speed and accuracy of detection and action, the absence of danger by the equipment and its resistance to the occurrence of potential hazards are very important. The equipment of these systems usually has a high detection and response speed and identifies and announces the danger in less than a few seconds.
On the other hand, this equipment is very resistant to dust and water penetration (the IP of this equipment is usually 66 and 67), and therefore there is no possibility of flammable dust entering them, causing sparks and igniting the equipment, which will increase the safety of the environment. Of course, having such resistant bodies also minimizes the vulnerability of the equipment in the event of accidents. For this reason, F&G equipment is called explosion-proof and having ATEX, IECEx, FM and UL certificates is very important for this equipment.
Also, the lack of penetration of electrical current inside the equipment to the body and outside the device is very important to prevent contact with dust in the air and ignition, and measures have been taken for that.
The difference between the F&G system and the fire alarm system does not end here and the resistance of the body. These devices have different outputs of 4-20 mA compared to the fire alarm system and use special protocols RS-485, HART to communicate with the central panel. In addition, it is very important not to send false alarms or errors in these devices, and therefore the gas and fire monitoring system equipment must have received SIL certification, also level 2 or 3.