July 27, 2017 - Fire Safety/Protection
The Los Angeles Federal Courthouse is a 10-story, 633,000-square-foot facility, situated in downtown Los Angeles. It contains 24 courtrooms and 32 judges’ chambers, and has sustainable features such as a serrated facade that maximizes views yet also reduces solar heat gain by nearly 50 percent. It also has a large, high atrium — where conventional smoke detectors would not be suitable.
To ensure optimum fire detection, four Fireray beam smoke detectors from FFE were installed. The Fireray 5000 beam detectors work by transmitting a beam of invisible infrared light across the building space to be protected. A receiver detects and measures the light and can recognize smoke interference anywhere along the beam path, triggering the alarm signal when the pre-determined threshold is reached.
One of the deciding factors for using these detectors was the ‘low level controller’ feature, which means maintenance and testing can be carried out via the control room instead of having to be physically accessed.
Another important factor in any new-build project is building movement. All new buildings need to ‘settle’, and for beam detectors, which rely on precision laser alignment at opposite ends of the building, any movement can mean the beams become unaligned. The Fireray 5000 compensates for this through its ‘auto-alignment’ feature, ensuring beams remain aligned during building movement, without causing nuisance alarms or requiring a technician.
