2. Getting involved
3. Standards Committees
4. DKE

DKE German Commission for Electrical, Electronic & Information Technologies of DIN and VDE

Overview

Carbon monoxide (CO) is a product of the incomplete combustion of carbon-based materials. CO fire detectors can react promptly to smouldering fires involving carbonaceous materials because CO does not depend solely on convection, but also moves by diffusion. CO fire detectors might be better suited to applications where other fire detection techniques are prone to false alarms, for example due to dust, steam and cooking vapours. Detectors based on the use of CO sensors alone, are covered by EN 54-26. Some fires may not produce a sufficient amount of CO to trigger an alarm condition from a detector conforming to EN 54-26. These are typically free-burning, open, well-ventilated fires. The inclusion of heat sensing combined with CO sensing can increase the sensitivity of such a detector to these types of fires. A number of different methods for sensing CO are suitable. However, most sensors will also be influenced by other gases and phenomena. Tests have therefore been included in the test schedule to assess cross-sensitivity to substances normally present in the service environment that may affect the performance of the detector. Test Fires TF2, TF3, TF4 and TF5 from EN 54-7 have been included to verify the detection performance. TF4 and TF5 specifically demonstrate the influence of the heat sensor(s). For these Test Fires, the CO level and, where applicable, the temperature is used as test validity criteria. Detectors may have modes of operation, in which only one fire phenomenon is evaluated. This standard does not include tests for additional alarm outputs corresponding to the sensing of only one fire phenomenon. Reference should be made to other parts of EN 54, which may cover such modes of operation or outputs. The European Standard has been prepared by Technical Committee CEN/TC 72 "Fire detection and fire alarm systems" (secretariat: BSI, United Kingdom) and the committee responsible on the national level is Working Committee NA 031-02-01 AA "Brandmelde- und Feueralarmanlagen" ("Fire detection and fire alarm systems") of DIN Standards Committee Firefighting and Fire Protection (FNFW).

Document: references other documents

Document: referenced in other documents

Responsible national committee

NA 031-02-08 AA - Fire detectors group A - mirror committee of CEN/TC 72/WG 5, WG 12, WG 20, WG 21  

Responsible european committee

CEN/TC 72/WG 20 - CO detectors