Path: utzoo!telecom-request Date: Mon, 20 May 91 16:51:35 EDT From: "Steven S. Brack" Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Using Halon Around Switching Equipment Message-ID: Organization: Blue Moon BBS ((614) 868-998[0][2][4]) Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 385, Message 4 of 6 Lines: 37 David Lemson writes: > blake@pro-party.cts.com (Blake Farenthold) writes: > > FYI I toured the 911 dispatch center a couple of months ago. > > The whole dispatch station is protected by a halon fire protection > > system ... when the alarm goes off they operators and dispatchers have > > a couple of minutes to evacuate the dispatch area before the > > (apparently deadly) halon is released. > Incidentally, Halon works by sucking up all of the available oxygen, > thus killing the fire -- that's why it's a bad thing to be in the same > room with vast amounts of Halon. I recently toured the offices ans switching center for UNITS, Ohio State's telecom supplier. They're actually a division of the University, but operate almost independently. Their NT SL100 switch is protected by a Halon suppressant system. It turns out that things like foam & water don't mix well with microprocessors and other solid state electronics. 8) So, most heavy-duty telecom and computing installations use Halon or some variant thereof. As an aside, OSU may have to pull out the Halon system and replace it with something more destructive to their switching equipment, like CO2. The reason: Halon 1211 and 1301 (the two most common forms used in fire prevention) have been shown to be bad for the environment. Steven S. Brack | sbrack%bluemoon@nstar.rn.com Jacob E. Taylor Honors Tower | sbrack@bluemoon.uucp The Ohio State University | sbrack@nyx.cs.du.edu 50 Curl Drive. | sbrack@isis.cs.du.edu Columbus, Ohio 43210-1112 USA | brack@ewf.eng.ohio-state.edu +1 (011) 614 293 7383 | Steven.S.Brack@osu.edu