Application of Optical Based Flame Detection and Hazard Mapping in Whiskey Distilleries

The authors present a case for applying optical flame detection and 3D hazard mapping, technologies developed for and most often applied to onshore and offshore oil and gas processing facilities, to a class of industrial users that traditionally has relied on smoke and heat detection based approaches for protecting against fires and explosive atmospheres, namely whiskey distilleries. Whiskey distilleries produce, process, and store very large quantities of volatile, flammable materials and are, therefore, major fire hazards.

Fires and explosions at whiskey distilleries have a centuries-long history of fires and explosions which have resulted in massive economic and property losses and, at times, major loss of life. Some of these losses might have been significantly reduced had the fire been detected faster and emergency response personnel reached the fire faster. Responding faster means responding to a smaller fire, allowing firefighters to better limit the spread of the fire and extent of the damage.

Optical based flame detection is preferred over smoke and heat detection in the oil and gas industry because it is robust and provides significantly faster flame detection. Environmental aspects of whiskey distilleries, which are generally enclosed in buildings while still being exposed to the elements, can further hinder and delay detection when relying on passive smoke and heat detection technologies, compounding the advantage conferred by optical based flame detection. These issues are discussed in the paper.

Once the decision is made to implement optical based flame detection instead of more traditional technologies, the grid-based detector placement schemes commonly used for smoke and heat detector layouts also must be supplanted by placement strategies that optimize the coverage provided by the flame detectors. 3D hazard mapping tools are seeing increasing use in the oil and gas industry to assure that fire and gas detection systems achieve desired performance targets. The authors believe that using these tools to design and implement optical gas detection in a distillery is the obvious choice, over blind application of grid-based methods.

This leads the authors to conclude that significant improvements can be achieved in whiskey distilleries regarding fire detection time and overall risk by using optical based flame detection in general and visual based flame detection in particular, where the detector layouts are designed and optimized using 3D mapping tools.