Design And Construction Of A Fire Alarm System

INTRODUCTION
In modern society, it is impossible to imagine house or building without a fire accident detector. Modern houses require a continuous installation of fire detector. Not only industry, but also in the household. Take the case of a duplex that experience a fire accident without a detector that means everything in that building will get burnt even human beings. But in a case whereby fire alarm is installed that means every one in that building will be alerted and also fire security bodies will also be informed for quick security action. The same thing can also happen to our offices and industries. In order to notify residence of any building in the presence of fire accident, a fire alarm system is used.
An automatic fire alarm system is designed to detect the unwanted presence of fire by monitoring environmental changes associated with combustion. In general, a fire alarm system is classified as either automatically actuated, manually actuated, or both. Automatic fire alarm systems are intended to notify the building occupants to evacuate in the event of a fire or other emergency, report the event to an off-premises location in order to summon emergency services, and to prepare the structure and associated systems to control the spread of fire and smoke.

1.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
The Nigerian environment is considered to be hazards prone brought about by man-made and natural disasters due to its geographic circumstance which is exposed to catastrophic, floods droughts and fires. Based on the reports; devastations of these natural hazards and disasters including fires have increased in recent years. Our lifestyle of negligence and adapting to emerging technological solutions puts us at the risk of loss to fire and related occurrences as seen in markets, homes and other public places. The risk of fire occurrence is high especially during the dry season, Christmas and New Year celebration due to firecrackers. In the case where house fires are prevalent, it has effect to derail the economic growth, destroy social and physical capital including infrastructures, which resort to reallocation of ongoing programs to finance relief operations to fatalities and inhabitants and reconstruction efforts which diverts funds to social services. Fires are considered natural and man-made hazards. This technology aimed at putting an end to these problems by alerting the owner of house at the starting point of fire accident via alarm.

1.3 OBJECTIVE OF THE PROJECT
The objective of this work is to construct a device that will detect the unwanted presence of fire by monitoring environmental changes associated with combustion [2].

1.4 PURPOSE OF THE PROJECT
The purpose of this work is to protect houses against fire accident. This fire alarm system will instantly notify you of any fire outbreak in your houses [2].

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PROJECT
The primary advantage of a home fire alarm system is increased reliability and the ability to place alarms and bells exactly where needed. However, the reason most people have them is that they wanted a burglar alarm system and the cost of adding fire alarm features to a residential burglary system is relatively small.
Another advantage of fire alarms is the flexibility to place them in specific rooms and areas of your choice. Although there are guidelines about certain areas to avoid, such as spots too close to bathrooms, where steam from showers and baths will inadvertently trigger the alarm, you do have options for where to install the units. For example, shared hallways for multiple bedrooms can be the location for a single fire alarm, or you can install the alarm in a bedroom that is usually closed off to other rooms.
When installed as part of a house or building’s fire alarm system, instead of as single, self-contained units, fire alarms provide additional protection whether inhabitants are inside the dwelling at the time of the alarm or not. When the monitoring station that the system is connected with receives the signal, it can send emergency medical help for individuals who need it, and fire department personnel can assist those who need help exiting the home or building. Also, as part of an overall system, one fire alarm that goes off triggers all the other fire alarms to go off, providing an alert to anyone within the vicinity.
This fire alarm is an inexpensive way to provide protection from smoke and possible fires. The only additional expense for the alarm is usually the cost of replacing a lithium 9-volt battery, which the alarms normally use.

1.7 APPLICATION OF THE PROJECT
Fire alarm plays vital role in risk reduction by helping to control fires at early stages or by initiating an alarm. This device can be used in places like:
i. Homes
ii. Worshipping places
iii. Industrial
iv. factory and offices

1.6 LIMITATION OF THE PROJECT
The amount of “smoke” present may be insufficient to alarm smoke detectors. Smoke detectors are designed to alarm at various levels of smoke density. If such density levels are not created by a developing fire at the location of detectors, the detectors will not go into alarm.
• Smoke detectors, even when working properly, have sensing limitations. Detectors that have photo-electronic sensing chambers tend to detect smoldering fires better than flaming fires, which have little visible smoke. Detectors that have ionizing-type sensing chambers tend to detect fast flaming fires better than smoldering fires. Because fires develop in different ways and are often unpredictable in their growth, neither type of detector is necessarily best and a given type of detector may not provide adequate warning of a fire.
• Smoke detectors are subject to false alarms and nuisance alarms. For example, a smoke detector located in or near a kitchen may go into nuisance alarm during normal operation of kitchen appliances.
In addition, dusty or steamy environments may cause a smoke detector to falsely alarm. If the location of a smoke detector causes an abundance of false alarms or nuisance alarms, do not disconnect the smoke detector; call a professional to analyze the situation and recommend a solution.
• Smoke detectors cannot be expected to provide adequate warning of fires caused by arson, children playing with matches (especially within bedrooms), smoking in bed, violent explosions (caused by escaping gas, improper storage of flammable materials, etc.
• System components will not work without electrical power. If system batteries are not serviced or
Replaced regularly, they may not provide battery backup when AC power fails.
• Environments with high air velocity or that are dusty or dirty require more frequent maintenance.
• In general, fire alarm systems and devices will not work without power and will not function properly unless they are maintained and tested regularly.
• The most common cause of an alarm system not functioning when fire occurs is inadequate maintenance. As such, the alarm system should be tested weekly to make sure all sensors, transmitters, and notification devices are working properly [3][4].

1.7 PROJECT WORK ORGANISATION
The various stages involved in the development of this project have been properly put into five chapters to enhance comprehensive and concise reading. In this project thesis, the project is organized sequentially as follows:
Chapter one of this work is on the introduction to this study. In this chapter, the background, significance, objective limitation and problem of this study were discussed.
Chapter two is on literature review of the study. In this chapter, all the literature pertaining to this work was reviewed.
Chapter three is on design methodology. In this chapter all the method involved during the design and construction were discussed.
Chapter four is on testing analysis. All testing that result accurate functionality was analyzed.
Chapter five is on conclusion, recommendation and references.