Research And Insight

Water sprinkler system

Water sprinkler systems use water to suppress fires in buildings. The fire sprinkler pump distributes the water via the pipe-system and discharged by the sprinklers. 

Fire sprinkler systems use water to suppress and in best case to extinguish fires in buildings. Piped systems are used to distribute the water throughout the building to where the fire is present. 

The system is typically characterised using relatively large amounts of water flows Q minimum = 1000 l/min at maximum pressure H =12 bar with big water droplets from the sprinklers. Sprinkler systems in high-rise buildings can have extremely high pressures and easily exceed 12 bar.

Water is relatively cheap and typically available in adequate amounts, and very useful to extinguish fire, since water-droplets rapidly absorb heat and converts to steam, which displaces the air and suffocates the fire. 

A water sprinkler installation can be fed from the municipality supply. Here the water is drawn straight from the main water supply and fed directly into the sprinkler system. This requires sufficient flow and pressure from the mains water supply to feed the designed requirements of the sprinkler system. 

Where flow is adequate, but pressure is not, a pump may be installed directly onto the main water supply pipe and is used to add pressure to the incoming water supply. Break tanks can be used for storing water for sprinkler system where flow is not adequate in the main water supply pipe. 

The pump room:

Typically located in the basement of the building or separate compartment or container. This is where the water and electricity is supplied to the fire sprinkler pumps, driven by electric motor or diesel engine. Other main components in the fire-pump room are pressure maintaining pump, ventilation system, measurement devices, controllers, alarm valves, main distribution pipes, jockey pump, water tank, alarm devices.

The piping system: 

The pipes system is installed in the building and starts with the riser pipes from the pump room, then through trunk mains that are divided into the branch pipes where the sprinklers are attached. Consideration should be made for the ambient temperature around such pipes, and where applicable trace heating and lagging should be considered to protect pipes from the risk of frost damage.

Alarm valves: 

Control valves are used as a method of indicating that there is a fire and hence water flow in the system. There are many different types of valves that can be used, but each will serve the purpose of notifying the site via an alarm monitoring device that there has been a drop in pressure, causing the valve to lift. These can be located within the pump house, but also throughout the building, particularly within zoned systems (where the installation has multiple zones to allow for easier maintenance). 

The water pump for sprinkler systems and water booster pump for sprinkler systems is a part of the fire sprinkler system and Grundfos supplies these for industrial and commercial fire protection. 

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