Conax provided a variety of thermocouple lengths to cover the grid structure at a Fire Rescue Training Center.
Customer Requirement
Not all applications for Conax products are industrial in nature. In this situation, the customer needed to replace thermocouples in a device designed to simulate a fire rescue situation. This Fire Rescue Training Center is located on a college campus in New York State and operated in conjunction with local police and fire agencies. As part of their training facilities, the Center uses numerous 12′ x 12′ burner grids to simulate a fire at a crash site of an airplane or some other large equipment. The grids contain rocks similar to lava rock. The burners within the rock are fired by liquid propane. Each grid uses three thermocouples to monitor the temperature of the fire. By controlling the temperature, the Center is able to emulate the circumstances a fire fighter would face at various types of fire emergencies.
Conax Solution
The Center recently revised their grid structure and in the process damaged 80 of the Type K thermocouples. Since the grids are spread over a relatively large area (for example, the circumference of an airplane crash area), the thermocouple lengths vary from 12′ to 60′, 3/16″ diameter, with an Inconel sheath and 20′ of PTFE-insulated leads.