On October 21-25, 2006, I attended the biennial ASPE Convention and Engineering Exposition as one of your Boston Chapter Delegates.  I would like to thank you and the Boston Chapter Board for selecting me to represent Boston again this year.  From start to finish, a convention is educational, exciting and full of scheduled events.

The Business Meetings provide an ASPE member many interesting bits of information like how Boston, a large chapter, is perceived by others, how Society is correcting the past, where it plans to go and who is going to lead us.  Each one of us does have a say if you get involved to become a part of the solution.  There is pride in being a Boston Chapter delegate.  I am with a group of very experienced individuals that have attended conventions for almost as long as ASPE has been around.  I am with a group of individuals that have or are serving on Society Boards.  I am with a group that watches our Boston Chapter President, continue to loop around the hall of delegates, to go up and receive award after award of Achievements and Certificates of Appreciation.  Although I always say how the world hates a winner, being one of the largest chapters in society, we can all be proud of the fact that the Boston Chapter has been directly responsible in helping to maintain this organization year after year.

I attended several technical sessions during this Convention.  An entertaining speaker, Richard Miller of Medical Gas Technology, provided a very good overview of the credentials and requirements necessary for performing inspections of medical gas systems.  His humor and past war stories made for and energetic presentation.  He emphasized ASSE standards of performance qualifications, documentation of the entire verification process, talking to a systems verifier early on in a project and how important interim inspections are, prior to final signoff and occupancy.  I found it interesting how we have gone from having these systems inspected and certified in the past by equipment manufacturer representatives, to verifiers paid by the installing contractors, to what is suggested now as certified inspectors paid by the engineering firm or building owner.  Removing conflicts of interest and having a certified company on board early during the design process helps maintain systems installation integrity, assures code compliance from start to finish and reduces final sign off/occupancy issues significantly.

Our new ASPE Society President, Julius Ballanco, presented The Chemistry and Physics of Fire.  If you have had the chance to attend one of his seminars or read any of his articles, you will know that he is passionate about family, ASPE and Engineering.  His discussion included combustion and fire development basics, ASTM rated assemblies and how assemblies are tested.  Julius wrapped up with smoke development rating and smoke control.   Julius provided an energetic presentation filled with family stories, past participation in actual ASTM and UL testing and advice from his experience.  One common statement among attendees is that the topics and presenters are excellent, if only they had more time to go into even more detail.  Anyone looking for a fax of my handouts with chicken scratch notes is welcome to email me at ptaylor@ber-engineering.com.

The Plumbing Exposition is loaded with booths of products.  Reviewing products that are not prevalent in New England is always educational.  Seeing familiar affiliate faces at their respective product booths is always enjoyable.  I have stated this in past newsletter text, you can really appreciate how supportive our Affiliates are within our Boston Chapter when you attend the ASPE National Exposition.  The proactive services our Affiliates provide us, with up to date product information, is clear when you stop at a booth to review the "manufacturer's latest".  I can honestly say that a new product being shown at the Exposition, by a manufacturer represented in New England, has never surprised me.  I am either aware of it or already have literature for it.

Back to work now and dug out from the awaited pile of stress, One can then reflect back to the fun between the whirlwind schedule.  You can always find a familiar face to have dinner or a beer with and enjoy the local sights.  I recommend attendance to a future Convention to anyone.

Paul Taylor, CET, CPD
Boston Chapter Delegate

At the recent ASPE Convention in Tampa, Florida, history was made on the local and national levels.  For the first time, Boston ASPE sent two affiliate members to participate and vote at the convention business meeting and bylaw amendment proceedings.  Patrick Haney, Corresponding Secretary, attended all convention proceedings as a voting delegate and Jim Harrison, V P Membership, filled in on at least one occasion as an alternate.  The historic significance of this event was defined by bylaw changes at the previous convention allowing affiliates to attend and vote as delegates.  It was quite an honor for me to represent the Boston Chapter as a delegate.

On the national level a new and important position was created:  Vice President, Affiliate.  The Vice President, Affiliate shall be responsible for all activities pertaining to the representation of the Affiliate Members and other duties as directed by the President.  At the January Board of Directors meeting, Mr. Billy Smith will be sworn in to the new position and have a vote on the Society Board.

Respectfully submitted,
Patrick J.  Haney

Opening comments:

Fire suppression modeling is in its infancy, and substantially behind fire modeling.  The current fire modeling programs are based on NIST research, and are considered to be some of the best and most usable research that NIST has produced in the life safety areas of endeavor.

There are currently 80 million sprinklers being installed in the world every year, and almost half of them are in the US.  We are leading the world in sprinkler installation for all building types.

Main Presentation:

The seven secrets of successful sprinkler specification.
Recognize the value of sprinkler systems even where not required by code.
Maximize benefit to owners by providing designs with performance based layout.
Use Division 21 in new Masterformat.
Understand the NFPA 13 Hazard Classification system.
Understand the NFPA 13 Commodity Classification system for storage occupancies.
Use the "Owners Certificate", included in the 2002 version of BFPA 13..
Stay Current with new technology.
These are the elements of a solid sprinkler system design, and should be followed by the fire protection designer on all projects.

Case Study: the Station Night Club fire of 2003.

NIST was called in to investigate the fire, as this was one of only a few fires that was caught on video tape where the source of the fire was recorded, and the propagation of the fire for the first 35 seconds are very accurately documented.

Based on the events of the evening, the rapid spread of the fire and smoke seen on the recording, NIST and other agencies said that they did not believe that the installation of sprinklers in this establishment would have stopped or controlled the fire, due to the rapid spread and the presence of exposed flammable foam on the walls.  This statement was made after the preliminary findings when NIST modeled the fire on their suppression modeling program.

Subsequent to their initial statements NIST assembled a full-scale model of the inside of the structure and recreated the incident both with and without sprinklers.

The results without sprinklers were recorded and indicate that at the one minute mark (after initial ignition), the smoke filled the room, and descended from the ceiling to within about 2 feet of the floor in a time period of about 20 seconds.  Mr.  Fleming indicated that he has never witnessed a smoke development this rapid in the 30 years he has been involved with fire sprinklers.

The results with sprinklers were recorded and to everyone's surprise, the operation of 2 sprinklers controlled, and nearly fully extinguished the fire in about one minute.  Needless to say, NIST immediately updated their program to include this data.

Mr. Fleming used this example to illustrate the infancy of sprinkler modeling for suppression.

The videos of these two test cases are available at:  http/www.nist.gov/public affairs/nightclubfire release.htm

Temperature and carbon monoxide recordings were taken for both test cases and the results indicate that the amount of heat, the lack of oxygen and the level of carbon monoxide in the space were all at lethal limits about 100 seconds into the fire without sprinklers.  With sprinklers all of recorded levels remained near normal atmospheric levels throughout the test.

As a comparison, Mr. Fleming reported on a fire in the Fine Line Music Club, Minneapolis, Minnesota on February 17, 2003, just 3 days before the Station fire.  Both incidents started with pyrotechnics igniting exposed urethane foam on the walls, but the Fine Line case, the sprinklers operated and controlled the fire.  120 people were safely evacuated, and the club reopened few days later after minor repairs.  There were no fatalities.  A caveat to this story is that some of the ceiling tiles had been removed before the performance and the sprinklers were positioned below an open ceiling grid (non-NFPA 13 compliant), but did operate and control the fire.

This portion of his presentation was eye-opening and goes directly to support the installation of automatic sprinklers.

Mr. Russell is a representative of the sprinkler industry so may be biased, however the NIST testing and the changes to their suppression modeling software should be clear indication of the value of sprinklers in this incident.

By Jim Polando, PE, CIPE