It sounds fright­ening when the fire signal from the ship’s siren resounds over the deck and a loud­speaker announce­ment warns of a fire on board. Fire poses a major risk to passen­gers and staff, whether it is on ferries, cruise ships or commer­cial ships, as there is no escape — except for emer­gency boats — and toxic fumes spread quickly through the venti­lation systems and air condi­tioners. Although fire regu­la­tions in ship­ping are very strict, hundreds of fires occur every year, espe­cially on commer­cial ships.

Most of them break out in the machine room, where ship fuel is pumped at high pres­sure from the tanks to the engines in pipes. If leaks occur, highly flam­mable fuel vapors or gases escape. The conven­tional fire protec­tion detec­tors prescribed by law react to smoke, flames and heat, but if these occur, it is already too late. With the LAS-10, the devel­opers at Daspos designed an active detector, which detects gases and vapors as well as resulting fine oil parti­cles in the air and sounds the alarm before the substances can ignite.

At the heart of the gas detector from the Danish ship­ping tech­nology experts at Daspos is a highly sensi­tive sensor that perma­nently scans the ambient air. (Photo | Daspos A/S)

Vigi­lant gas detector

At the heart of the gas detector from the Danish ship­ping tech­nology experts at Daspos is a highly sensi­tive sensor that perma­nently scans the ambient air. To ensure that as much air as possible flows through the detector chamber of the LAS-10, a powerful, specially devel­oped blower from ebm-papst sucks up to 10,000 liters of air through a stain­less steel filter per minute. The elec­tronics constantly analyze the air compo­si­tion and compen­sates for it with spec­i­fied set values.

Torben Lintrup Kirk­holt, Managing Director of ebm-papst in Denmark explains: “Air consists mostly of nitrogen and oxygen. If there are oil parti­cles in the air, they stick to the filter and make it more diffi­cult for air to flow through. Then, the detector sounds an alarm.”

Daspos could patent the idea for predic­tive fire detec­tion at the begin­ning of the 2000s. Together with Danish ship­ping compa­nies and the Danish Tech­no­log­ical Insti­tute, it got the LAS-10 ready for the market by 2011. The S-Force axial compact fan from ebm-papst has been part of the overall system since 2013. Kirk­holt says, “Initially, we used a different fan. However, in prac­tice it proved unsuit­able for high seas. Thanks to its robust finish, the fan from ­ebm-papst can also with­stand the harsh envi­ron­ment at sea.”

Thanks to its robust finish, the fan from ­ebm-papst can also with­stand the harsh envi­ron­ment at sea. (Photo | Daspos A/S)

Robust power­house

The S-Force axial compact fan also has other advan­tages: it can be controlled in contin­uous steps from 1,000 rpm to 7,000 rpm using a PWM signal and the open collector tach signal enables the speed to be contin­u­ally moni­tored. This flex­i­bility is bene­fi­cial because up to 48 different areas of a machine room can be moni­tored with indi­vidual settings. The power­house is not partic­u­larly quiet in this config­u­ra­tion, but it does not have to be, as Kirk­holt says with a smile: “It is very loud in a machine room anyway, so the noise level of the compact fan is not impor­tant. The perfor­mance, reli­a­bility, and robust finish are more impor­tant.”

In a machine room, perfor­mance, reli­a­bility, and robust processing are more impor­tant than the noise level.

Torben Lintrup Kirk­holt, Managing Director At ebm-papst Denmark

Torben Lintrup Kirk­holt likes the fact that ­ebm-papst also serves smaller markets with modi­fied solu­tions. Besides, he is certain that his solu­tion has the poten­tial to be successful in other areas as well: “The detector can be adapted to meet the require­ments in power stations or refineries, for example. The example of ship­ping has shown us that anyone who has expe­ri­enced a fire on a ship does not have to be convinced. Avoiding a fire before it starts is always the best option.”