Alarm systems in buildings - Researches of effectiveness depending of the type of building and the user profile

Abstract

Gerber, Gero. 2019. Alarm Systems in Buildings - Researches of effectiveness depending on the type of building and the user profile. Dissertation Thesis: VŠB Technical University of Ostrava / CZ, Faculty of Safety Engineering. Supervision: Professor Dr Ing Aleš Dudáček, Ostrava

Alarm systems are used in large buildings to inform all persons quickly and effectively about an existing danger situation. They also intend to trigger a certain behaviour. In practice, there are many reports that show that people often do not behave correctly during an alert. In a first step this paper investigates, what fire protection planners and building authorities expect from alarm systems and which criteria can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the systems. In the second step, a large collection of case reports is used to analyse how the effectiveness of the alarm systems depends on the type of building, the user profile and the type of alarm system. Appearing deficits are examined for their causes. As a result of the expert interviews, the criterion for an acceptable effectiveness for the further investigation was set at 90%. In 72 % of the collected case studies, this value and thus the protection goal of the plant were not achieved. The statistical evaluation showed that the effectiveness of the alarm system strongly depends on the type of building and the user profile, but only to a small extent on the type of alarm system. Since there are also large deviations within the building types and user profiles, further factors must have a strong influence. The further investigation resulted in the fact that above all missing instruction and drill of the users and a habituation to false alarms, lead to the fact that persons do not react in the case of alarm as intended. The last part of this thesis contains general and building type-specific technical and organisational measures, with which a sufficient effectiveness of the alarm systems can be achieved.