Successful hot smoke test: Izar at the Kaufleuten Club

The Kaufleuten restaurant in Zurich has been renovated and the operator has had the new smoke exhaust system tested according to fire authority requirements. For this acceptance test, Basler & Hofmann used the Izar hot smoke test system for the first time in a building with normal business still in progress. Everything operated perfectly.

Fast and uncomplicated test procedure

The fire safety team of Basler & Hofmann developed the patent-protected Izar mobile test system in order to simulate real fire situations. Izar was used in the Zurich Kaufleuten restaurant to test the new smoke exhaust system – for the first time with business still carrying on. Assembly of the system took precisely one hour – as planned: Izar increased the air temperature to the required level of 60 degrees Celsius at a height of 7 metres. The fog machine produced a white fluid which made the smoke layering easy to see. It «flew» from it like a magic carpet after activation of the smoke exhaust system. The test was concluded after 15 minutes. Neither assembly nor disassembly got in the way of day-to-day business in the Kaufleuten (backdrop assembly in the Club Room).

Accurate simulation of fire progression

200 kilowatts of convective heat were generated in the Kaufleuten. Which is not much, because Izar can produce much more: a single burner module generates 1.25 MW of convective heat, which corresponds to a natural fire of almost 2 MW. You can increase the output almost at will by adding further modules. This also makes it possible to accurately simulate fires in large buildings with a high concentration of people, such as shopping centres, stadia, ice rinks, lobby areas, hospitals, airports and tunnels.

Environmentally-friendly and safe

The procedure is also non-hazardous: the gas is mixed with precisely the right quantity of air so that the two materials burn in stoichiometric equilibrium. The blue flames radiate practically no heat, are completely non-hazardous for people and buildings and fulfil the stringent requirements of the Swiss Environmental Protection Act.

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To Expertise Real fire testing with Izar