Meeting Minutes
March 10, 2009
Hooks Central Library at 3:00 p.m.

Speaker – Michael Crovo, District Mgr. – Eastern Region, AirSense Technology
Topic – Aspirating Smoke Detection Technology
Location – Benjamin Hooks Central Library
                  3030 Poplar Ave.
                  Memphis, TN 38111
Meeting Called to Order – 3:00PM
Meeting Adjourned – 4:15 PM

Chapter President Majid Hatamzadeh opened the meeting by welcoming everyone and discussed the up coming chapter meeting topics.  He then introduced the speaker Michael Crovo with AirSense Technology who provided the group with an informative discussion on Aspirating Smoke Detection Technology.

Air Aspirating Smoke Detection, also known as an Incipient Fire Detection System,  is a system that uses small diameter piping strategically located in a protected space with calibrated holes drilled into the pipe.  Air is drawn through the holes by a pumping system back to a single chamber containing a smoke detection device.  Such systems are known as Active Detection systems versus a Passive Detection systems because they draw samples to determine if there is a fire condition and do not depend on the natural air currents to bring the smoke to the detection device.

The AirSense technology uses a laser based smoke detection system.  Each drilled hole is considered a point detection per NFPA 72.  The AirSense system known as Stratos has a Four Stage Response/Alarm arrangement or Alarms Levels which include Pre-Alarm or Incipient Stage, Fire Alarm 1, or the Visible Smoke Stage, Fire 2 which is Flaming Stage and Fire 3 which is Intense Heating stage.  All Stratos laser based detectors are based on light scattering technology.

Older or Legacy systems that use a similar active approach to detection have detectors that require the manual setting of detection sensitivity ranges.  New technology used by AirSense includes Relative Sensitivity capability in which the detector learns the ambient air sampling and adjusts the sensitivity to prevent false alarms.   The system is designed to view particle sizes of .0034 to 10 microns and have a light obscuration sensitivity of between .00046 to 7.62 % obscuration/sq. ft.  System costs are competitive with standard smoke detection technology as the size of the installation increases or when the protected space is considered to be “Mission Critical”.  Typical areas of installation include Telecommunication switch rooms, Clean Rooms, Museums, high airflow environments, hostile environments, warehouses and In-Cabinet detection for electrical installations.   

Mr. Crovo ended his presentation with a Q & A session.  Majid thanked Mr. Crovo for providing such an informative presentation. 

Jerry Vuoso, Chapter VP and Majid Hatamzadeh provided a general description of a planned one day free seminar to be offered in September.  More information will be provided to chapter members in future meetings and communications.   

The meeting was then adjourned.

Mr. Michael Crovo can be reached at:

AirSense Technology
One Adams Place
859 Willard Street
Quincy, Mass 02169-7482
Office Number – Toll Free (877) 641-2453
Fax – (508) 809-9932
E-mail – sales@airsense.us
Internet Site – www.airsense.us