[labnetwork] Room Pressurization During a Fire Alarm

[Iulian Codreanu]

Hi Jacob.

I assume the sequence mentioned applies to smoke detected in the 
cleanroom space and not to every "building-level" fire alarm.  In that 
particular situation my cleanroom would go negative (-0.05" WC) but the 
initiation of what we call the "smoke purge sequence" is a manual 
process - folks have to think things through before pushing the 
"cleanroom purge" button.

Hope this helps.

Iulian

iulian Codreanu, Ph.D.
Director of Operations, UD NanoFab
University of Delaware
163 ISE Lab
221 Academy Street
Newark, DE 19716
302-831-2784

On 8/1/2014 7:43 AM, Jacob Trevino wrote:
> Hello All,
>
> We are so very close to having our contractor hand over our new 
> building and cleanroom, however an issue has come up over 
> cleanroom pressurization during fire alarms. Currently in a fire alarm 
> event, the building management system ramps the cleanroom supply air 
> down, while maintaining hood exhaust rates, thus bringing the room 
> into negative pressure. We have been told that this was done to comply 
> with NYC Department of Building code, which requires rooms to be 
> negative relative to?corridor pressurization (in the event of a fire).
>
> The cleanroom team argues the negative pressure has two very negative 
> implications. The first and most important is that with hoods still 
> pulling air at normal rates, doors leading out of the cleanroom may 
> become suctioned shut and difficult to open in the event of fire. 
> Secondly, negative pressures are obviously bad for the cleanliness of 
> the cleanroom.
>
> We would like to throttle the system down to maintain a very light 
> positive pressure in the event of a fire alarm, however we are still 
> meeting a good deal of resistance from building designers who have 
> never worked with a cleanroom before.
>
> I am very curious to learn what your pressurization scheme might be in 
> the event of a fire alarm. Do you have any references you have found 
> valuable (people, organizations, documents)? Any input would be 
> greatly appreciated.
>
> Best,
> Jacob
>
> -----------------------------
>
> */Jacob Trevino, PhD/*
> NanoFabrication Facility Director
> The City University of New York (CUNY)
> Advanced Science Research Center (ASRC)
> Tel.  (646) 664-8914
>
> Fax. (646) 664-2965
>
> Email: Jacob.Trevino at asrc.cuny.edu <mailto:Jacob.Trevino at asrc.cuny.edu>
>
> Web: http://asrc.cuny.edu/
>
>
>
>
>
>
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