Upgraded Fire Protection
Precious resource in Arizona gets makeover
- By Fred C. Bauer
- Mar 01, 2014
Water is one of Arizona’s most precious resources, and the
Colorado River satisfies much of this demand via the
336-mile-long Central Arizona Project (CAP) aqueduct
that annually delivers approximately 1.6 million acre-feet
of Colorado River water to cities, Indian Tribes and farms
in central and southern Arizona. The CAP consists of 15 pumping plants that lift
the water approximately 2,400 feet from the Colorado River to south of Tucson.
When originally built in the 1970s, these pumping plants were protected by
conventional fire alarm systems in compliance with the existing codes. As a member
of OSHA’s Voluntary Protection Programs (VPP), CAP felt the life safety of
its employees warranted the expenditure to upgrade with today’s advanced, intelligent
fire protection technologies.
Project Scope
Chasse Building Team was selected by CAP as the construction manager at risk
(CMAR) that subcontracted CopperState Fire Protection of Phoenix to provide
solutions from NOTIFIER.
“It was time to take these 30-year-old systems into the 21st century,” said Tim
Snow, general manager at CopperState.
The upgrade. According to Telma Reyes, CAP contracting officer, the upgrade
included “the installation of clean agent fire protection systems, wet pipe suppression
systems, fire detection and alarm systems as well as an upgrade of existing
CO2 systems.
“We modified existing damper systems and existing stairwell pressurization
systems, as well. Louvered doors were also replaced with solid panel doors. We
prepared as-built drawings of all changes and additions.”
CopperState retrofitted four plants, installing new addressable fire alarm systems
with a NOTIFIER NFS2-3030 control panel at the head end of each system.
As one of the fire industry’s largest capacity fire alarm control panels, it can
support up to 3,180 addressable devices and includes a modular design for easy
expansion and tailoring.
Operations/maintenance goal. Standardization of the systems across the plants
was definitely obtained by the versatility of the new systems.
“We started out with a cookie-cutter design for each plant, but quickly found
out each has its own idiosyncrasies,” said Michael Pierce, CAP senior project manager.
“You need to know your system and pay close attention to details, especially
in the design review phase.”
Protecting pump motors. Although the purpose of the upgrade was to improve
life safety, protecting the pump motors—CAP’s biggest assets—was a major objective.
Four of the CAP pumping plants, located in central and western Arizona,
are similar in capacity and design. Each plant has 10 pump units of various sizes
ranging from 1,500 to 9,000 horsepower, and each of these units is protected by its
own high-pressure, CO2 fire suppression system that is monitored and controlled
by either an NFS2-640 or NFS-320 fire alarm control panel from NOTIFIER. All fire alarm panels are networked with
the main NFS2-3030 panel to allow
monitoring, response and maintenance.
Because these pumping plants were
constructed with concrete walls up
to 48-inches thick, rigid conduit raceways
were installed by the CMAR for
the fire alarm cabling used to transport
high-speed data between the new NOTIFIER
fire alarm control panels via
the NOTI-FIRE-NET network. While
each panel operates independently, this
exclusive networking solution ties all
panels together for easy monitoring of
the entire network, from one or multiple
locations over hundreds of miles.
The autonomous operations of each
panel means the loss of one will not
bring down the entire network, resulting
in greater survivability.
The plants’ motor rooms use NOTIFIER
Acclimate Plus detectors, an intelligent
device that uses a combination
of photoelectric and thermal sensing
technologies for increased immunity to
false alarms. This intelligent device uses
the patented FlashScan communication
protocol that was developed to speed
communication between control panels
and analog intelligent devices. Unlike
traditional intelligent detectors, the Acclimate
Plus has a microprocessor in the
detector head that processes alarm data.
As a result, the device adjusts its sensitivity
automatically according to the environment,
without operator intervention
or control panel programming.
Protecting fire alarm controls. To
protect the fire alarm controls in this
industrial environment, CopperState
customized industrial-grade Hoffman
NEMA 12 enclosures for many
of the panels. The enclosures allow
local maintenance staff to easily view
alarm system status. They can simply
open the NEMA enclosure and manually
perform actions, such as alarm acknowledgement
and reset.
Exceeding standards. As a member
of OSHA’s VPP, CAP facilities meet
or exceed health and safety standards,
and maintain injury rates well below
the National Bureau of Labor Statistics’
rates. Recognition from the VPP
encouraged CAP and CopperState to
look beyond mandates by code.
“We required a lot of extensive
testing and had to make a number of
changes throughout the installation
process,” said Craig Truax, CAP electrical
controls engineer. “If you’re going
to take on a project of this magnitude,
having a contractor that’s competent
and willing to go the extra mile to meet
your requirements is important.”
Monitoring and
Maintenance Made Easy
One of the most evident changes was
the improvement in the communication
of alarms between the CAP headquarters
in Phoenix and the four upgraded
CAP plants.
The NOTIFIER ONYXWorks
graphic workstation allows facility
management and security personnel to
view the status of all fire alarm and fire
suppression networks throughout the
four pumping plants. Through CAP’s existing Ethernet infrastructure, the
ONYXWorks graphic workstation receives
data from each plant’s fire alarm
network (twenty-four hours a day, seven
days a week) over IP, allowing CAP
staff to view all system points, alerts
and alarm events in real time. Using the
graphic workstation, each plant’s system
can be controlled remotely.
“Our facilities are so remote that
coordinating the communications of
alarms is key,” stated Justin Larsen,
CAP lead project mechanical engineer.
“By avoiding having staff drive hours
to check on a plant, this centralized
system will save a lot of labor when it
comes to monitoring and maintaining
these systems.”
In conjunction with the monitoring
centralization of all the plants’ fire protection
networks, CopperState configured
CAP’s ONYXWorks workstation
to serve as a single source of control
and supervision for the execution of:
- “Lock Out Tag Out” procedures
when maintenance is required on the
10 CO2 systems and two clean agent
fire suppression systems;
- evacuation measures during a plant
emergency that may not be firealarm
related;
- control and monitoring of the stairwell
pressurization system;
- monitoring and control of all fire
smoke dampers;
- monitoring and control of the plant
fire pump; and
- monitoring and control of all 10
plants’ pump units for motor differential
operations.
CAP is authorized to act as its own
authority having jurisdiction (AHJ),
while additional fire protection consulting,
inspection and certification
services were provided by Rolf Jensen
& Associates, Inc. of Phoenix. All fire
alarms, sprinkler supervision and CO2
systems were tested for compliance to
NFPA 13 and NFPA 72 standards.
Potential Advancements
The fire alarm and suppression systems
at the remaining 11 CAP plants are
scheduled to be upgraded over the next
four years. Due to the simplification of
fire alarm monitoring and control that
CAP has gained through the NOTIFIER
ONYXWorks system, CAP has
planned for one workstation to be installed
at each plant.
Once all 15 plants and headquarters
are upgraded, CAP plans to broaden
the scope of its NOTIFIER network
to serve as an emergency communications/
mass notification system. Through
the ONYXWorks platform, authorized
CAP personnel will have the ability to
broadcast messages to all or specific areas
of a facility using audio and visual
notifications; send distributed recipient
messages, such as emails and computer
pop-ups; and even broadcast announcements
for miles outside
of the plant.
This article originally appeared in the March 2014 issue of Security Today.