Patent Issued for System and Components for Evaluating the Performance of Fire Safety Protection Devices (USPTO 9694223)

By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Weekly News -- A patent by the inventors Yu, Hong-Zeng (Foxboro, MA); D'Aniello, Stephen P. (Franklin, MA), filed on January 23, 2015, was published online on July 4, 2017, according to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by VerticalNews correspondents.

Patent number 9694223 is assigned to Factory Mutual Insurance Company (Johnston, RI).

The following quote was obtained by the news editors from the background information supplied by the inventors: "Applicant's U.S. Pat. No. 6,085,585 to Yu et al., the entire content of which is incorporated herein by reference, relates to a sprinkler performance evaluation system for measuring the effectiveness of a sprinkler system for warehouse fire protection. The system evaluates, among other things, the actual water density (ADD) delivered by the sprinkler system through the fire plume to the top of storage stacks which have been ignited, and the prewetting density (PWD) on the commodity stacks adjacent to the ignited stacks.

"The system disclosed in the '585 patent generally includes a burner system that produces a fire plume, and a ceiling for suspending a sprinkler system above the fire plume. The system also includes a fluid collection system having a series of pans under and around the periphery of the burner system to collect fluid (e.g., water) from the sprinklers that passes through the fire plume, and/or around the fire plume. The pan collection system measures the amount and rate of fluid collected by the pans, and provides a measurement of the ADD and PWD produced by the sprinkler system."

In addition to the background information obtained for this patent, VerticalNews journalists also obtained the inventors' summary information for this patent: "According to an embodiment, a fire safety protection evaluation system comprises at least one horizontal collection device including a liquid collection pan with a substantially horizontal opening, a first storage container in communication with the liquid collection pan, and a first measuring device adapted to measure an amount of liquid in the first storage container and/or a rate of liquid entering the first storage container; at least one vertical collection device including a substantially vertical liquid collection surface extending between a top edge and a bottom edge, a trough located along the bottom edge, the trough being configured to collect liquid from the substantially vertical collection surface, and a second measuring device adapted to measure an amount of liquid and/or a rate of liquid collected by the trough.

"According to another embodiment, a liquid collection device for evaluating a fire safety protection system comprises a liquid collection pan with a substantially horizontal opening adapted to receive liquid from the fire safety protection system; a storage container in communication with the liquid collection pan, the storage container comprising a vessel defining an interior for storing the liquid received by the liquid collection pan, and a cover disposed on a top opening of the vessel, the cover including an opening through which the liquid is received by the vessel; and a measuring device adapted to measure an amount of liquid in the storage container and/or a rate of liquid entering the storage container, wherein the cover is configured to be movable in a direction to and from the interior of the vessel such that the cover can move away from the interior in response to a deflagration over-pressure in the vessel.

"According to yet another embodiment, a method of evaluating a fire safety protection device comprises generating a fire plume underneath at least one fire safety protection device; collecting fluid delivered from the at least one fire safety protection device to at least one horizontal collection device located underneath the at least one fire safety protection device, the at least one horizontal collection device having a substantially horizontal opening for collecting the fluid; collecting fluid delivered from the at least one fire safety protection device to at least one substantially vertical collection surface facing the at least one horizontal collection device; measuring the fluid collected by the at least one substantially horizontal collection device and the at least one substantially vertical collection surface; and evaluating the at least one fire safety protection device based on the measuring of the fluid collected.

"Further objectives and advantages, as well as the structure and function of preferred embodiments, will become apparent from a consideration of the description, drawings, and examples."

URL and more information on this patent, see: Yu, Hong-Zeng; D'Aniello, Stephen P.. System and Components for Evaluating the Performance of Fire Safety Protection Devices. U.S. Patent Number 9694223, filed January 23, 2015, and published online on July 4, 2017. Patent URL: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=9694223.PN.&OS=PN/9694223RS=PN/9694223

Keywords for this news article include: Financial Companies, Insurance Companies, Insurance Broker Companies, Factory Mutual Insurance Company.

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