Shanghai Volkswagen, a joint venture between Volkswagen and China’s SAIC Motor, opened a new plant in the city of Ningbo, east China’s Zhejiang Province. So far, Ningbo holds 35 of the Worlds Top 500 companies and the investment totals 9.97 billion US dollars.
With a total investment of 11.7 billion yuan (1.9 billion US dollars) invested in the Shanghai Volkswagen plant, it covers a total area of 187 hectares. Its annual production is expected to reach 300,000 units by the end of 2014.
The first vehicle assembled was a Skoda Superb and other cars will be produced at the plant according to the company’s development plan.
During the design of the fire alarm system in the car assembly, the owner, the design institute and the local fire bureau considered the linear heat detection system to cover the productions lines. in close cooperation with NKT Photonics, it was decided that a seminar would be set up to introduce the customers and their Chinese partners to the LIOS DE.TECT real-time linear heat detection system.
All of the advanced features of LIOS DE.TECT; Huge international track record, the sensitivity of fire detection, the stability of long-time operation, and convenience of manual settings, excited the decision makers from Shanghai Volkswagen and in the end NKT Photonics became the qualified vendor for fire detection at the plant in Ningbo.
How it works
In the Shanghai Volkswagen Ningbo plant the LIOS. DE.TECT optical fiber cable is installed under the cable tray above the assembling production line. The specific fiber optical cable installed has a robust structure with fire-resistant outer sheath, stainless steel wires, gel-filled steel tube, and low attenuation which is one of the critical parts of the system in order to guarantee excellent system performance.
NKT Photonics’ linear heat detection system with multiple operation languages, including Chinese, is designed to measure the temperature along the cable. In the case of Shanghai Volkswagen that means along the entire production lines. The LIOS DE.TECT has a Chinese Fire Approval, VDS and UL certificates enabling installation in most facilities.
Two working positions are defined as a fire alarm zone, enabling the operator to locate the precise location of fire immediately and precisely. Through the built-in programmable digital outputs, the signals from a fire alarm of system fault can be sent directly to the alarm center. In events of a fire alarm or system fault, the position and time are recorded in the LIOS. DETECT controller as well as copied to the memory hard disk.
The LIOS.DETECT system is considered a reliable system by Shanghai Volkswagen, the design institute, and the fire engineering company and has received much praise. The safety department at Shanghai Volkswagen says they would deploy more LIOS. DE.TECT products for their expanding projects and recommend NKT Photonics to the other branch plants.
