AC-02-08-2 -- Use of Optical Density-Based Measurements as Metrics for Smoke Detectors PDF

The characteristics of smoke traveling in an HVAC duct are described as a part of a larger effort to develop performance metrics to assess the response of duct-mounted smoke detectors. Such a measure should apply to a range of detectors and account for heat release rate, fuel composition, and dilution due to high airflows. In this paper, data collected from small-scale experiments are presented that provide insight to such a performance metric. The smoke in a duct is characterized by several means, including a laser light sheet, obscuration of white light, velocity profile, and temperature distribution. The response of a detector with a single sampling probe is recorded. Smoke characteristics could be scaled by the fire size and airflow rate, though with a strong dependency on the fuel and burning characteristics. The optical density and mass optical density are determined to be useful metrics for characterizing smoke and smoke detector response.

Units: SI