Improved simulation method for optimizing optical chamber of photoelectric smoke detectors

Abstract

A kind of improved method for optimizing the optical chamber of photoelectric smoke detector is introduced in this paper. False alarm of fire detectors could be costly, especially in the field of aviation. Therefore, FAA made a standard that any fire in the cargo compartment of an airplane has to be detected within 60 s. This limitation requires detectors to own extremely high sensitivity and low alarm threshold. However, more false alarms occur because of the nuisance aerosols or something else. Great expertise and in-depth knowledge of several disciplines, such as optics, aerodynamics and material science, are required to design the detectors. By powerful modeling software, complicated optical chamber model of detector can be built within a short time. And optical simulation method by optical simulation software offers a simple solution for optimizing the geometry of optical chamber. In this paper, the effect of internal light sources of optical chamber and ambient light are analyzed applying the new method, and the optimization measures are showed by a simplify procedure. Referring to experimental results, this new proposed method is proved to be feasible.