POSSIBILITY OF USING LASER-FIBER OPTICS AS A FIRE DETECTION SYSTEM

Optical fibres together with a helium-neon laser is proposed to be use d as a new fire detection system. This has been investigated experimen tally and reported in this paper. Results on the coupling loss, bendin g loss, extinction loss of the fibres due to smoke and refraction loss through hot air shimmer are described. Comparison with the performanc e of common optical and ionization detectors is made. Experimental res ults indicate that the optical signal would be significantly changed w hen there is smoke. Hence it is highly probable that a new fire detect ion system can be designed ruing laser-fibre optics. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.