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Smoke-free yachting

The presence of inflammable solvents combined with a dusty environment can cause problems for fire detection systems.

To meet this challenge, Polish yacht manufacturer Delphia Yachts turned to Bosch Security Systems, and has installed more than 200 of the company’s flush-mount Series 500 Smoke Detectors to protect its valuable manufacturing facilities.

Based in Olecko, Poland, Delphia Yachts is one of Poland’s foremost manufacturers of yachts and motorboats, and exports its broad range of luxury products all over the world. The shipyard consists of three manufacturing workshops, a warehouse connected to offices, and a gatehouse. All areas, especially the workshops, were recently equipped with smoke detectors to protect the company’s property and assure the staff’s safety.

Finding a fail-safe solution

Since the manufacturing process at Delphia generates a large amount of dirt and dust, the company had a special need for smoke and fire detectors guaranteeing fail-safe operations even in extremely challenging environments.

The significant risk of fire due to the presence of highly flammable materials used for production, such as wood and acetone as well as packaging material like foils, meant that the company needed highly reliable and sensitive detectors. However, since the manufacturing process generates a large amount of dirt and dust, including gel-coated dust in some areas, in order to avoid false alarms in such surroundings, the detectors would be need to be designed not to attract fibres and require effortless cleaning. Equally important, the sensors had to differentiate dust from smoke; this factor more or less ruled out traditional smoke detectors.

Meeting Delphia’s demanding criteria

To meet Delphia’s demanding requirements, Gdansk-based installers PW Janrom chose the Bosch Series 500 Smoke Detectors and installed more than 200 throughout the manufacturing workshops and offices, all connected to a 5000 Series Modular Fire Panel, also from Bosch.

The Bosch 500 Series detectors use a virtual smoke measuring chamber by monitoring two independent light areas in open space. This makes them extremely reliable as the two independent light areas assure reliable and fail-safe operation. In addition, the detector’s lens and software prevent it from reacting to stray light and an anti-masking feature tells the fire panel if the detector lens is covered. The versions chosen for the Delphia Yachts solution also include a gas sensor for detecting carbon monoxide. A major benefit of this system is that the sensitivity level of the chamber increases when carbon monoxide is detected, making the unit equal to or better than standard commercial photoelectric smoke chambers, while significantly reducing false alarms when the gas is not present.

When the face plate lens does get dirty, an internal contamination sensor automatically informs the control panel that cleaning is required when a certain threshold is exceeded.

Several other peripherals such as 420 Series Fire Detectors from Bosch have also been installed at Delphia Yachts in less exposed areas.

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