Maintenance of fire sprinkler systems based on the dynamic assessment of its condition

Abstract

Safety is one of the major concerns of process safety engineers in most industrial facilities all over the world. To this scope, some events play an important role once the effect of their consequences can be assumed as totally undesirable. One of these events refers to the occurrence of a fire. Such event can result in catastrophic consequences for life, equipment, and continuity of activities or even leading to environmental damage. A fire protection equipment with low reliability means that this equipment are often unavailable and thus the risk of a fire increases. Maintenance of fire protection equipment is very important because this kind of systems is mostly in a dormant mode, which gives uncertainty about their operability when demanded in a real situation of fire. This article outlines the importance of tests, inspection, and maintenance operations in the context of a fire sprinkler system and proposes a methodology based on international standards and supported by test/inspection reports to correct the frequency of these actions according to the level of degradation of the components and regarding safety purposes. V C 2015 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog 35: [84][85][86][87][88][89][90][91] 2016

Proposed Changes to the Inspection Strategy for Fire Alarm Systems: Empirical Analysis of Weak Points and Technical Influencing Factors

“…False alarms also cause high costs due to operational interruptions [27,28]. Optimizing maintenance strategies makes it possible to increase efficiency and minimize costs [6,9,12].…”

“…This problem is particularly critical because safety-relevant facilities in buildings are usually inactive; so, it is not clear from their normal operating status how well they will function in an emergency. Hence, there are special quality requirements for the maintenance of these systems [9]. Thus, the current framework for the inspection and maintenance of fire alarm systems presents several challenges.…”

“…Studies have also considered comparable risk-based maintenance systems. For example, Sobral and Ferreira analyzed optimized maintenance of a fire extinguishing system [9].…”

Taking Advantage of Collective Intelligence and BIM-Based Virtual Reality in Fire Safety Inspection for Commercial and Public Buildings

“…Sobral and Ferreira [5] proposed a qualitative approach of a fault tree analysis to assess the availability of a fire pump system, taking into account the specificity of dormant systems and the importance of the frequency of inspections or tests of these systems. Sobral and Ferreira [6] also stressed the importance of tests, inspections, and maintenance operations in the context of a fire sprinkler system. They proposed a methodology based on international standards and supported by test/inspection reports to adjust the frequency of these actions according to the level of degradation of the components and with regard to safety.…”