Euralarm: airflow’s impact on fire extinguishing systems in data centers

Euralarm has published a new guidance document on the impact of high airflow and hot/cold aisle containment on the performance of gaseous fire extinguishing systems in data centers. The new guideline is aimed at fire system designers, IT managers and operators of data centers.

Euralarm’s research on airflow and fire systems

This recent industry research by Euralarm explored whether contemporary cooling methods and the continued movement of air, common to modern data centers, had any impact on the performance of gaseous fire extinguishing systems, and whether this effect was good or bad.

Euralarm’s guidance document aids interpretation of the research, will help the European market foster a practical application of its findings, and complement the conclusions at the back of the report.

Euralarm on the importance of airflow against fire for data protection

“Protecting ITE from fire whilst also safeguarding its continued operation is paramount to most businesses nowadays” they highlight from Euralarm.” Gaseous fire extinguishing systems, using clean agents, are principally used to protect critical ITE. With a need for high availability, this now includes throughout the full fire scenario for as long as the ITE is expected to operate.

The exponential growth of data and need for more processing power brings challenges of heat generation and demands improved and more efficient cooling. With data centers commonly having complex and targeted air flow that cannot be shut down even during a fire incident, it is important to know how to better engineer a fire protection system” Euralarm concludes.

Read here the guidance document.

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