Fire Safety Solution
IoT Based Solution To Prevent Fire Hazard in Multiplex / Large Commercial Building
Background
- A fire can happen at any time at any place irrespective of its occupancy status. You can expect a fire at any structure, may be at your home / workplace / hospital / public places like theatres, malls, etc… Fire in any occupancy has the potential to cause harm to its occupants & severe damage to property. For mitigating a fire in any occupancy, whether it is a business house or in a factory or in a residential building, require a deep understanding about the problem.
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One must admit that fire creates total waste. Such waste would not be tolerated by any efficient management, if it resulted from inefficient operation. The successful prevention of fire loss depends almost entirely on the management of the business. To control the loss through fire, the management must survey the total operation of the business to determine where the loss potential lies.
Fire Safety
- Having said that we also have to admit that the fires are caused almost entirely by people, either through their actions, which may be accidental or deliberate and malicious or through their failure to make appropriate precautions such as, for example, the regular inspection, maintenance and repair of defective equipment.
How To Prevent Fire Hazard
IoT Based Sensor can provide a solution to this burning problem in advance whether any such mal-operation or lack maintenance is taken place or not. It will alert concerned authority about the situation and they can prevent such fire hazard by taking proper action.
MachineSenseTM Power Analyzer Expert Sense is purely an IoT based device which will easily detect the sources of fire which are mostly related to electrical hazard. It measures the voltage and current signature 24x7 and does its own cloud based analysis to derive electrical issue like Over Voltage, Current Harmonics, Bad Grounding, Over Voltage.
MachineSense PA Expert Sense will send you SMS alert over email/mobile when ever it will detect any alarming condition.
Common Reasons of Fire Hazard
Actually fire hazard can take place due to several reasons like smoking, combustion sparks, burner flames, lightning, faulty electrical equipment, overloading power sockets etc. But Short circuit is the most common electrical reason of fire hazard.
Electrical fires are one of the top six causes of fires in manufacturing plants. Here a non-exhaustive list of specific electrical hazards which eventually leads to short circuit:
- Improper single phase load tapping
- Wiring that is exposed or loose wiring
- Overloaded Outlets
- Misuse of extension cords
- Overloaded Circuits
- Static Discharge
- Bad electrical ground or earthing
Common Reasons of Fire Hazard
Mal-Operation of Electrical Equipment
Today’s business relies heavily on electricity, but getting it to where we want it often includes using electrical cords. Unfortunately, if we use these cords improperly it also creates conditions ripe for a fire.
- Nailing or stapling cords to the wall can compromise the insulation, shorten the cord’s useful life, and create a fire hazard.
- Don’t run electrical cords through doorways and windows. Shutting them can squeeze the insulating jacket, cause sparks and excessive heat, and ignite a fire.
- Electrical cords rated for indoor use aren’t appropriate outside. Cold, heat, and moisture can compromise the cord which can lead to sparks or heat which leads to fire.
- Plugging too many electrical devices into a cord overloads it. Overloading causes excess heat which can lead to fires.
- Wrong selection of circuit breaker or fuse at the time of replacement during maintenance.
IoT Based Sensor to Detect Such Electrical Issue
MachineSenseTM Power Analyzer Expert Sense is purely an IoT based device which will easily detect the sources of fire which are mostly related to electrical hazard. It measures the voltage and current signature 24x7 and does its own cloud based analysis to derive electrical issue like over loading in any phase due to illegal single phase tapping, current harmonics in line due to highly non linear load such as HVAC, AC, compressor and of course the quality of electrical Earthing provided to the building.
Over Loading: It happens mainly because of inappropriate single phase load distribution by low skilled electrician. It creates excessive heating in one phase leading to insulation puncture and fire hazard. Measuring current imbalance in the system will give us the idea if there is any over loading. MachineSenseTM PA Expert Sense will alert you if it detects.
Current Harmonics: Many of us don’t know the bad impact of high current THD in power line. First of all high harmonics are being generated by nonlinear loads like Led bulb, fan, HVAC, compressor. More harmonics will create more heating in power line conductor and finally it can burn conductor insulation leading to short circuit.
Bad Grounding: Most of the commercial building or Multiplex do suffer from bad Earthing. It remains unnoticed till any accident or fire hazard happens due to lightning. Good grounding will prevent such lighting effect. It is surely a mandatory job of maintenance team to check ground condition time to time but often they don’t. Here is the advantage of using MachineSenseTM Power Analyzer Expert Sense to detect any bad ground.
Over Voltage: Electrical outlets/equipment can be damaged by over voltage. In some cases if the outlet or equipment faces extremely high voltage than its rating , a very high arc is being created inside the device which leads to short circuit between L-N in case of single phase load or between lines in case of three phase device. So over voltage can be real threat to fire hazard if not taken proper maintenance schedule by team.
How MachineSense Power Analyzer Expert Sense works?
1-Port Power Analyzer Expert Sense
- It operates from 85-265 VAC @ 50/60 Hz
- Can support wifi/Ethernet for connectivity.
- Can be used up to 1000A , 600V system
- Two single Port PA can be used to isolate the utility issue
- It uses three CTs and three VTs as electrical input parameters.
Visualization – Expert Platform
Case Study: Nandaram Market (Kolkata) Using: Machine Sense Expert Power Platform
Used Case :Nandaram Market (Kolkata)
- Location: Kolkata, West Bengal, India
- Installed Area: Incoming Power Panel (50KV)
- Application : Track the power-line health & detect the major issues which can lead to fire in future.
- Machine Sense Sensor deployed: > CT Type: 300A > Sensor Type: 1-Port Power Analyzer Expert Sense
Background- Market Overview
Nandaram Market is one of the largest wholesale market consists of 13-storied building in eastern India located at Kolkata. This market is mainly popular centre of shopping for garment items and other clothing materials. This market consists of 6,000 shops and around 12,000 traders carrying out their business daily.
There has been two major fire hazards that broke out at Nandaram Market.
- 1st incident happened on January 2008
- 2nd incident happened on July 2019
Result:
- Around 3000 shops and offices were gutted
- Capital lost due to fire hazards was near about 100 crore
According to firemen, Fire happened due to short-circuit.
Background on Present Power Distribution Lines
A- Basement DB
B- Captured V&I using PT’s & CT’s
C- MachineSense Hardware with Mobile Router Connectivity
- At Nandaram Market, there are total of 4 numbers of 50KV CESC meter and after that there are 4 no of distribution boards (DB) from where the main building's power supplies have been drawn floor wise. (fig-A)
- 1-Port Power Analyzer Expert Sense was installed at the output of Basement DB on 1th September,2019.
- We captured all the three phase voltage & current signature data along with neutral current from basement DB output 24x7 and transmitted the data to the cloud server using mobile router.(fig-B and fig-C)
- Purpose of installation was to track and monitor the incoming power-line health and detect the major issues which can lead to fire in future.
Observation: Voltage Imbalance
Observation: Current Imbalance
Observation: High Neutral Current
Inference from the Above Report
Phase Current: From the installation, it is observed that three line cores are of 50 mm sq. which can allow 145 A to flow at normal temperature 23°C-26°C as per standard industrial practice. But considering temperature and grouping factor, every cable has to be de-rated by 0.7 factor. So effectively this cable can allow max of 145*0.7 = 102A.
We already observed more than 105 A at times so it is already in boundary due to improper distribution of loads.
>> Solution: This can be reduced to safe limit by balancing out the loads among the phases.
Neutral Current: Neutral wire is of 25 mm-sq. which can allow max of 86A as per standard. If de-rating is considered, it is effectively safe to carry a max of 60A. It is also observed a neutral around 54A which is also lying near danger zone due to poor distribution of the load.
>> Solution: This can also be taken to safe limit by load balancing.
Current Harmonics:Most of the load in the market place is non-linear like computer, printer, scanner, power adapter for laptop/mobile, LED light etc which are the major sources of harmonics being injected in the line. More the harmonics will lead more temperature rise of the cable which may also lead to fire in future. But at full load harmonics are 15 % which is not immediate concern but of course an important parameter to observe in future keeping in mind that loads will be increased by demand .
Solution
- Load Distribution: Distribute the load among the 3- phases equally. This will reduces over loading in single phase and reduction of neutral current.
- It is noticed that power cables are optimally loaded and in case of any further loading should be monitored carefully.
