The National Indoor Arena (NIA) in Birmingham is benefiting from
a fire system upgrade that has equipped the 13,000-seat venue with
a new Apollo intelligent fire detection system.
The contract to upgrade the current Apollo system was awarded to
BDS Fire & Security Limited, who recommended a range of
detectors and ancillary products from the Discovery range to meet
the client's specification. Representatives from the client also
visited Apollo's headquarters and inspected the manufacturer's
production and testing facilities.
The NIA is a multi-purpose arena that can stage more than 30
different indoor sports as well as concerts, entertainment and
business events. With regular use of pyrotechnics and
diesel-powered equipment, as well as full catering and
merchandising facilities, the multi-use nature of the building is a
potential source of false alarms. The new fire system needed to
provide protection to the main four storey building and its four
linked multi storey car parks.
Graham Hawkins, Sales & Services Director at BDS Fire &
Security Ltd., comments: "We identified the areas of high risk for
unwanted alarms and recommended the Apollo Discovery range because
it features multisensors with five programmable sensitivity
settings that make it extremely adaptable to differing
environmental conditions. We have installed over 750 multisensors
forming part of a complex and highly integrated cause and effects
schedule, delivering peace of mind and continuous fire detection
for the client."
In fact, Apollo's Discovery range of intelligent fire detectors
offers a number of features to ensure that warnings are
particularly reliable and nuisance alarms are kept to a minimum.
Examples include automatic drift compensation, a feature that
adjusts for environmental conditions such as dust to ensure the
detector is not adversely affected, and sophisticated
self-monitoring that rejects transient alarms.
In total, over 1,300 devices were required to upgrade the
existing system, including 782 multisensor detectors, 154 manual
call points and in excess of 300 Klaxon sounder beacons. 110
interfaces connect the fire system with the NIA's automatic smoke
doors, extract fans, catering gas valves and access control doors.
In the event of an alarm being raised, a phased evacuation sequence
is activated with instructions relayed via a Signet PA/VA
system.
Designed around six Advanced MX4400 panels, the fire system is
networked together and includes a Graphical User Interface. BDS has
used the Advanced Graphics package in a novel way to switch groups
of multisensors between different operating modes in a preset
sequence to take into account the varying fire detection
requirements of the building at different times of day.
BDS Fire & Security's aim was to install the new fire
detection equipment with as little disruption as possible to the
customer's operations. Thanks to Apollo's policy of using the same
open digital protocol for all its intelligent devices, BDS Fire
& Security had no difficulty in sourcing detectors that were
compatible with the existing Apollo devices and were, therefore,
able to offer full protection throughout the phased schedule of
works.
Graham Hawkins concludes: "In this case, forwards and backwards
compatibility was a very important aspect of the system. The end
result was that the NIA was never without a working fire detection
system. Throughout the upgrade, the arena remained fully
operational with minimal disruption to its day-to-day
operations."