Evaluation of the use of ultrasound for pressure measurement in fire suppression cylinders

Fire safety technology and processes continue to advance. Many modern fire suppression
systems make use of “clean agents” delivered in gaseous form, however the effectiveness of
these systems is dependent on there being adequate pressure within a fire cylinder to deliver
the clean agent. Traditional methods of checking these systems are costly and time
consuming, especially for large scale operations such as high rise buildings, oil rigs or data
centres which may have potentially hundreds of cylinders in a single system. Coltraco, an
established UK manufacturer drawing on research with the University of Durham (DU) and
Warwick (Centre for Industrial Ultrasonics – CIU), will pioneer the concept of a constant, noninvasive
cylinder Ultrasonic Pressure Monitoring (UPM) system to give on site and remote
monitoring of fire suppression installations 24 hours per day 7 days a week on the basis of a
successful 18 month project to investigate the relationship between ultrasonic pulse return and
gas contained within a cylinder. Such a system will be the first in the world and would
provide a significant advance in fire safety with particular importance in high value buildings
and environmentally sensitive and hazardous industrial processes.