Life safety retrofit for Ohio State's towers

Dec 1, 1999 12:00 PM, ACCESS CONTROL & SECURITY SYSTEMS INTEGRATION STAFF

Lincoln Tower and Morrill Tower, the twin towers at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, are the tallest college residence towers in the United States. Until recently, they had the highest rate of false alarm incidents in Columbus, according to fire department officials. Worse still, students were reporting that they could scarcely hear the evacuation alarm when they were in their bedrooms.

The two 24-story towers were completed in 1966 and upgraded in 1981. The towers had zoned fire alarm systems, which conformed to code, except for the decibel level of the voice evacuation alarms.

The layout of the residence suites contributed more to the students' inability to hear the alarms, however, than did the actual decibel levels in the corridors. In the twin towers, student rooms are arranged in suites, or "pods," six to a floor.

In a typical pod, the hall corridor opens into a common lounge; from there, a foyer leads to four study rooms, each with a bedroom behind it. Because of this layout, student bedrooms are insulated by distance and are several doors from the corridor alarm.

The false alarm problem The windows in the 30-year-old towers are unopenable. The resulting lag in the exhaust of excessive smoke - from cigarettes, scorched popcorn and other nuisances - led to many more false alarms. Each alarm is immediately investigated by residence hall staff and campus police. By state law, a full response by the Columbus Fire Department is also required. Due to the large number of false alarms, the college felt an obligation to reduce the number of times the fire trucks had to come unnecessarily.

Detectors filter out the nuisance In 1998, college safety authorities decided to install a new life safety system for Lincoln and Morrill towers. The goals were to raise the decibel level of the evacuation bell, provide immediate identification of the detector in alarm, and reduce the incidence of nuisance alarms.

The system selected was an MXLV multiplexed system with voice evacuation and intelligent, application-specific detectors. The system was supplied by Siemens Building Technologies, Siemens-Cerberus Division, Florham Park, N.J.

Each suite is equipped with nine FirePrint detectors, installed in the lounge, studies and bedrooms. The ASD-type detectors, programmed to distinguish typical fires from non-fire nuisance, are virtually immune to false alarms, according to the supplier.

A chip in each detector is programmed with custom algorithms that enable the detectors to evaluate the distinguishing signatures of fire and non-fire events in one of a range of venues - in this case, a typical dormitory situation. Speaker/strobes were placed throughout the suites to meet decibel level and ADA requirements.

Morrill Tower is devoted completely to student housing. Twelve panels are employed in the 24-story tower: a main panel and 11 remote panels. In Lincoln Towers, floors 15 to 24 are devoted to housing and equipped with a main panel and four remotes. The rest of Lincoln is presently used for offices and retains zoned fire alarm systems, but the university intends to renovate it into residence suites and tie it into the system.

Successful installation Installation began in December 1998, and the system went into operation in March 1999. Since then, there have been fewer false alarms, and the city of Columbus is satisfied.

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