Apollo technology lies at the heart of an intelligent fire
detection system installed to protect Phoenix Court, a new luxury
student village in the heart of Bristol city centre.
The specification emphasised the need for minimum unwanted
alarms and an open protocol system. Multi-Alarm Systems Ltd. of
Bristol won the contract to supply and commission the fire
detection system and recommended Apollo's Discovery range of
intelligent fire detectors to meet the client's criteria.
Built by the UK's largest student accommodation company UNITE,
Phoenix Court is the first part of Bristol's £500 million Cabot
Circus retail and leisure redevelopment to be occupied. At 11
storeys, it is also the tallest building of its kind to be built by
UNITE. It is now home to 277 students who attend both Bristol
University and the University of the West of England.
The Phoenix Court fire system is designed around a Multi Ifax 12
loop control panel and includes over 700 Apollo Discovery
Multisensors and 360 sounder bases, which interface with the
building access system, lifts and fire doors. Multi-Alarm Systems
recommended the Apollo Discovery range because it has a number of
features specifically aimed at reducing false alarms.
Barry Dunn, Senior Technical Engineer at Multi-Alarm Systems,
explains: "We identified that the areas of high risk for unwanted
alarms were the shower rooms, where steam could give a false
reading, and kitchen areas where transient levels of smoke or steam
from cooking are common. The Discovery Multisensor is ideal for
this type of environment as it is equipped with an optical smoke
and heat sensor and features five programmable sensitivity settings
that make it extremely adaptable to differing conditions."
Other features of the Discovery range designed to help eliminate
nuisance alarms 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.
The Discovery Multisensor itself uses algorithms to process the
signals from its smoke and heat sensors to produce one output on
which the decision fire/no fire' is based. Multisensors can be
selected to operate as a smoke detector only, a heat detector only,
or as one of three combinations of both. If an in combination'
selection is made, the signals from each sensor are considered in
relation to each other. The Discovery Multisensor is certified to
EN54 standard in every one of its five operating modes and its
reliability in the field in reducing nuisance alarm incidents has
been proven over several years.
The Phoenix Court fire detection system is designed to L2
standards and configured to enable a phased evacuation controlled
by sensor, zone sector or remote networked panel.