Citation

Schmidt-Ott A, Krull W, Burtscher H. Fire Safety J. 1991; 17(6): 423-430.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1991, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

A very simple electrostatic fire detector is introduced. Its principle is based on the fact that all combustion, including so-called smokeless fires, emit charged particles. Instead of measuring the net charge, as is done in conventional electrostatic detectors, only the particle charge of one polarity is sensed. This is an advantage, since the net charge is often small and hardly reproducible. The detector is universal, but especially sensitive to 'smokeless' fires and fires of organic solvents. In this sense, it is complementary to ionization-type or optical detectors. The response to CEN (Committee Europeene de Normalisation) standard fires was measured and compared to other sensors.