What dis­tin­guishes an inert gas ex­tin­guish­ing sys­tem?

The inert gases used in Oxeo ex­tin­guish­ing sys­tems are dis­trib­uted ho­mo­gen­eously in the event of fire and dis­place the oxy­gen from the fire source. Thanks to the three-di­men­sional mode of ac­tion, even con­cealed fire sources are re­li­ably and safely ex­tin­guished be­fore re-ig­ni­tion. For this reason Oxeo ex­tin­guish­ing sys­tems are very suit­able even for the fire pro­tec­tion of spe­cial risk areas with flam­mable li­quids and other haz­ard­ous sub­stances and of areas with high fire load­ing.

Rapid fire ex­tin­guish­ing with inert gases keeps dam­age caused by fire to a min­imum. In ad­di­tion to this – in con­trast to water, foam or power – sec­ond­arydam­age caused by the ex­tin­guish­ing agent is ex­cluded: inert gases leave no ex­tin­guish­ing agent residues and can be simply re­moved from the af­fected area again by vent­il­a­tion after ex­tin­guish­ing the fire. Oxeo ex­tin­guish­ing sys­tems are there­fore al­ways an out- stand­ing solu­tion if it is worth pro­tect­ing valu­able goods or ir­re­place­able cul­tural ob­jects from being des­troyed by fire. Moreover inert gases are elec­tric­ally non-con­duct­ive, so that they can also be used in areas with elec­trical or elec­tronic com­pon­ents. So Oxeo ex­tin­guish­ing sys­tems avoid long down­times and ex­pens­ive in­ter­rup­tions in op­er­a­tions.

Ad­vant­ages at a glance

Oxeo inert gas ex­tin­guish­ing sys­tems util­ize inert gases, such as argon or ni­tro­gen, and the res­ult­ing re­duc­tion of the oxy­gen con­tent. They are suit­able for pro­tect­ing areas with high-qual­ity yet sens­it­ive equip­ment, where residue-free ex­tin­guish­ing - without the use of water, foam or powder ex­tin­guish­ing agent - is to be pre­ferred. Argon and ni­tro­gen are nat­ural com­pon­ents of am­bi­ent air and also non-toxic and non-elec­tric­ally con­duct­ive.

• Ex­cel­lent ex­tin­guish­ing ef­fect even in spe­cial haz­ard zones and in areas with high or con­cealed fire haz­ards
• The inert gases used are non-con­duct­ive and leave no residues - this makes them ideal for the pro­tec­tion of highly-valu­able and sens­it­ive equip­ment
• In the con­cen­tra­tions re­quired for ex­tin­guish­ing inert gases used are non-toxic and there­fore suit­able for use in areas that are ac­cessed by people
• Ni­tro­gen and argon are nat­ural com­pon­ents of am­bi­ent air - no harm­ful im­pact on the at­mo­sphere
• Ni­tro­gen and argon are avail­able al­most every­where - this means, quick and cost ef­fect­ive re­act­iv­a­tion after op­er­a­tion
• Cost-ef­fect­ive multi-zone sys­tems with ex­tin­guish­ing gas stor­age can be im­ple­men­ted for sev­eral ex­tin­guish­ing zones
• High de­gree of flex­ib­il­ity for modi­fic­a­tion or ex­ten­sion meas­ures, thanks to the Oxeo stor­age sys­tem
• Oxeo tech­no­logy en­ables a more com­pact stor­age of the ex­tin­guish­ing agent, re­quir­ing up to 50% less space
• Con­stant­Flow tech­no­logy en­sures a con­stant flow of the ex­tin­guish­ing agent in the event of a fire - this per­mits the use of pres­sure re­lief flaps that are up to 70% smal­ler
• The MX Design­Man­ager cal­cu­lates the per­fect sys­tem op­tion and solu­tion for every pro­ject

Con­struc­tion of an Inert gas sys­tem

Oxeo ex­tin­guish­ing sys­tems are sub­divided into fire de­tec­tion and ex­tin­guish­ing con­trol tech­no­logy, the ex­tin­guishant sup­ply and into one or more ex­tin­guish­ing areas with cor­res­pond­ing area sub­di­vi­sion.

Oxeo Con­stant­Flow tech­no­logy op­er­ates with high-per­form­ance pres­sure reg­u­lat­ors moun­ted dir­ectly on the ex­tin­guish­ing agent cyl­in­der valves. At the start of the ex­tin­guish­ing pro­ced­ure the op­er­at­ing pres­sure is thus already re­duced to a max­imum of 60 bar at the out­put of the ex­tin­guish­ing agent cyl­in­ders. In ad­di­tion, a con­stant stream of ex­tin­guish­ing agent is cre­ated without a pres­sure spike. In con­ven­tional inert gas ex­tin­guish­ing sys­tems on the other hand the gas es­capes from the cyl­in­ders into the pipe net­work at the be­gin­ning of the ex­tin­guish­ing pro­cess with a char­ging pres­sure of up to 300 bar.

How does an inert gas ex­tin­guish­ing sys­tem work?

Oxeo Con­stant­Flow tech­no­logy op­er­ates with high-per­form­ance pres­sure reg­u­lat­ors moun­ted dir­ectly on the ex­tin­guish­ing agent cyl­in­der valves. At the start of the ex­tin­guish­ing pro­ced­ure the op­er­at­ing pres­sure is thus already re­duced to a max­imum of 60 bar at the out­put of the ex­tin­guish­ing agent cyl­in­ders. In ad­di­tion, a con­stant stream of ex­tin­guish­ing agent is cre­ated without a pres­sure spike. In con­ven­tional inert gas ex­tin­guish­ing sys­tems on the other hand the gas es­capes from the cyl­in­ders into the pipe net­work at the be­gin­ning of the ex­tin­guish­ing pro­cess with a char­ging pres­sure of up to 300 bar.

This cre­ates a pres­sure spike at the be­gin­ning of an ex­tin­guish­ing pro­cess as well as a heavy stream of ex­tin­guish­ing agent which rap­idly de­creases with the dur­a­tion of the flood­ing. A cru­cial ad­vant­age: In Oxeo ex­tin­guish­ing sys­tems with Con­stant­Flow, thanks to the con­stant stream of ex­tin­guish­ing agent, pres­sure re­lief flaps can turn out to be 70 % smal­ler than in con­ven­tional inert gase ex­tin­guish­ing sys­tems.The ex­tin­guish­ing areas can be planned more flex­ibly.

This cre­ates a pres­sure spike at the be­gin­ning of an ex­tin­guish­ing pro­cess as well as a heavy stream of ex­tin­guish­ing agent which rap­idly de­creases with the dur­a­tion of the flood­ing. A cru­cial ad­vant­age: In Oxeo ex­tin­guish­ing sys­tems with Con­stant­Flow, thanks to the con­stant stream of ex­tin­guish­ing agent, pres­sure re­lief flaps can turn out to be 70 % smal­ler than in con­ven­tional inert gase ex­tin­guish­ing sys­tems.The ex­tin­guish­ing areas can be planned more flex­ibly.

The gentler flood­ing pro­cess re­duces vi­bra­tions on the pro­tec­ted equip­ment and in par­tic­u­lar is gentle on par­tic­u­larly sens­it­ive equip­ment such as ro­tat­ing hard drives in server rooms and data cen­ters. When using Oxeo Con­stant­Flow tech­no­logy the con­nec­ted con­duits and se­lector valves need only to be de­signed for the low pres­sure level of 60 bar max­imum, which may res­ult in sig­ni­fic­antly prof­it­able solu­tions being im­ple­men­ted in many cases.