Sprinklers are an automatic water extinguishing system, widely used to extinguish or control fires and prevent them from spreading.
Sprinklers are controlled by an Alarm valve, which is based on a clapper that permits the water go through, when there is a different pressure. A gong is also installed, which sounds when the water moves through and the circuits where the pressure switches are installed, to emit external signals, for example, to the fire panel.
There are 2 types of systems:
- Wet system: These are the most used and work with thermal sprinklers. When the thermal element reaches the setpoint temperature, the water is released.
- Preaction system: we can differentiate between the dry system and the deluge.
- Dry systems, keep the network under pressure by means of compressed air.
- Deluge systems, there is no pressure on the network. The Alarm valve, is the one that contains the compressed air and can be operated manually or automatically, through a fire detection, which may consist of fire detectors or a pilot line detector with standard spray sprinklers or thermostatic fixed-temperature release device, used as a detector to pneumatically or hydraulically release the main valve.
There are several types of sprinklers, depending on the needs: conventional, upright, pendent, concealed, sidewall, etc.
Bottle or fuse sprinklers can be normal response, normally used for light or ordinary risks and fast response, used for storage risks.
Sprinklers can extinguish with water or water-foam. In the case of external pipes or in freezers, where the temperature can be below 0ºC, you can use a dry system or a wet system with antifreeze.
The rules to design Fire sprinkler systems are:
- UNE 12845
- NFPA 13
- NFPA 16
- CEPREVEN R.T.1-ROC
- FM 2-0
