Fire Suppression Using HVAC Airflow Control and Occupancy Data
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current fire suppression systems are often ozone-depleting, toxic, and environmentally unfriendly, and lack integration with occupancy data to provide comprehensive responses to dynamic fire threats, particularly in populated areas where chemical suppression is not deployed.
Innovation Solution
A building control system that acquires sensor data to calculate occupancy information and sends control instructions to HVAC systems to manage airflow, potentially reducing oxygen supply to extinguish or mitigate fires based on real-time occupancy data.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If chemical fire suppression agents are deployed, then fire suppression effectiveness is improved, but environmental harm and toxicity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses HVAC systems to control airflow and create oxygen-deficient environments that suppress fire without deploying toxic chemical agents. By manipulating air movement and oxygen availability through existing building infrastructure, the system achieves fire suppression while avoiding environmental harm and toxicity associated with traditional chemical suppressants.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces occupancy data and building control systems as intermediaries between fire detection and suppression action. This intermediary layer enables intelligent decision-making about when and how to suppress fire, allowing the system to choose less harmful methods (HVAC control) over toxic chemical deployment based on real-time conditions.
2Object-affected harmful factors
If HVAC systems are used to control airflow for fire suppression, then safety and environmental friendliness are improved, but fire suppression reliability may worsen
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a feedback mechanism where occupancy data continuously informs HVAC control decisions. The system monitors occupancy status and adjusts airflow control accordingly, ensuring that fire suppression actions are both safe for occupants and effective. This closed-loop control maintains reliability while using environmentally friendly methods.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent makes the fire suppression system dynamic by integrating real-time occupancy data from building control systems. Rather than static predetermined responses, the system adapts its suppression strategy based on current occupancy conditions, enhancing both safety and effectiveness through intelligent, context-aware control.
3Adaptability or versatility
If building control systems are integrated with fire suppression systems, then comprehensive response capability is improved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent makes existing HVAC systems multi-functional by enabling them to perform both their primary climate control function and fire suppression function. This universal approach allows the building control system to leverage existing infrastructure for dual purposes, achieving comprehensive response capability without proportionally increasing system complexity.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This approach allows for safer and more effective fire suppression by reducing the risk to occupants and responders, leveraging HVAC systems to control airflow and potentially extinguish fires without the need for hazardous chemicals, while prioritizing evacuation routes and refuge areas.
Implementation Method 1
By closing doors and/or windows, the oxygen available to the fire is reduced. Reduction of oxygen may, in and of itself, extinguish a fire. If the fire is not extinguished, the oxygen reduction may reduce the intensity, and hence temperature, of the fire.
Data Source
AI summary
A method for responding to a threat detected in a building includes acquiring sensor data from one or more sensor devices located within the building. Occupancy information of occupants within the building is calculated, based on the sensor data, in response to detecting the threat in the building. A control instruction is sent to a threat mitigator to reduce or eliminate the threat based on the occupancy information.