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Data Centers Breathe Easier With Less Oxygen
PC World is reporting that some companies are looking at a new method of fire protection in their server closets, oxygen-deprivation systems.""Wood stops burning when the oxygen content falls to 17 percent and plastic cables between 16 to 17 percent, said Frank Eickhorn, product manager for fire detection at Wagner Alarm and Security Systems GmbH in Hanover, Germany. Wagner makes electric compressors that use a special membrane to remove some of the oxygen from the outside air, a system the company calls OxyReduct. The excess oxygen is exhausted, and the remaining nitrogen-rich air is pumped inside the data center."
Yes, its safe to enter, but how long, 1 hour, 3 hours 6 hours 8 hours. The article doesn't mention.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
It doesn't bind to the oxygen so much as just displace it. Halon is heavier than oxygen and just pushes it out of the area. Halon is dangerous though because if there are people in the room when it goes off they won't be able to breath.
This whole idea doesn't seem that great. So what if something shorts out and sits there glowing red and no one notices? You sure as hell notice when something starts burning but something could be slowing frying multiple components before anyone notices because there would be no signs.
This might be safe for humans, but is it optimal for normal functioning. With a lower oxygen content, won't your lungs need to labor more to recover oxygen, and/or wouldn't your work ability be impaired somewhat (sleepiness etc) but the oxygen-poor air? This would be especially true if physical labour was required, for example lifting heavy servers on/off racks.
No, at 6000 feet there is still the same percentage of oxygen in the air, but at a lower pressure. This removes oxygen from the air. For a same volume of space it would have as much oxygen as a similar volume at 6000 feet.
Something will burn with the lower concentration of oxygen, but would be much less likely to ignite into open flame. It'd smolder slowly, and give you much more time to react to it.
It's a confusing analogy to explain a simple technical concept, because tech writers assume everybody is beneath their intelligence. Like putting too much air in a balloon.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Not only do I work in the server room... we have CUBICLES in the server room with the network admins office RIGHT NEXT TO THE STACK. Needless to say, I cant hear the secretaries phone ring anymore.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
I think he may have been on the whacky-weed. The drill was always the same--everybody out, last one out the door hits the big red button for the Halon. It was just by the door and was protected under a plastic shield so you couldn't just bump into it by accident. Of course those were data centers constructed as the Earth was still cooling and before the dinosaurs became extinct. We were also entrusted with (or encumbered by) massive tape reels--one per drone--and expected to keep them safe until everybody could assemble and regroup. Just grand carrying one of those down five flights of steps from a computer room that was unaccountably located on the top floor of a building.
"Here's what's happening. You're starting to drive like your Dad..." - Red Green
A few decades ago I served on a submarine. The oxygen generator stopped working for a while, and for operational reasons we couldn't snorkel for fresh air. The percentage of oxygen dropped below the point where combustion is supported, so the smokers were out of luck. People's lungs respond to the partial pressure of oxygen in air, not the absolute percentage, so the crew including myself were fine, since we were only at about the equivalent of 10,000 feet (US units). I always wondered wouldn't it be safer from a fire prevention standpoint to always operate like that.
People cook out up in Estes Park at 9-13K all the time. Maybe dude needs to refill his lighter...
It isn't just the partial pressure of oxygen that's important for fire. It's also the partial pressure of nitrogen. Nitrogen cools the reaction without contributing to it.
So having the partial pressure of oxygen appropriate to 6,000 feet while having even greater than sea-level partial pressure of nitrogen could well keep a fire from burning (at least in some fuels) and make it much harder than usual to get one started even in things (like magnesium) that would be happy to burn in this atmosphere (or even in pure nitrogen).
Meanwhile the human body is mostly interested in the partial pressure of oxygen and carbon dioxide. Walking into the data center would be like suddenly going from local altitude to 6,000 feet (minus the ear-pops and potential for a case of pressure-related issues). You'd run a little less "brightly" than usual. Live in such conditions 24/7 for a month or so and you'll build up additional hemoglobin in your blood until (like people who live at altitude) you're just fine. (I don't know if you'll get back to "full power" living in them 8/5, though.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I worked in a USAF sim that had halon under the floors, but no chilled air flow under the floors, and the floor tiles had no vents. One day the fire alarm tech accidentally triggered the halon, and the air pressure under the floor tiles lifted the tiles up and off of their frames. And it blew all the under floor dust up into the room. I think it was $10K to replace the two tanks (1988). The programmer in the room at the time said it sounds more like a bomb than a hiss.
This incident occurred the day after we had a power supply convert itself into a "smoke generator", around midnight at shift change. It filled the sim with smoke. We ran in from the maintenance shop (through the sim was the way out too) the boss pulled the halon dump handle, and nothing happened. That's "Oh Shit" night, followed by a "Oh Shit" day. I think the fire alarm guys had a "Holy Fucking Shit" week.
- High Tech workers, please say NO to Union Carpenters, their Union sees fit to control our compensation.
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is _n17_v47/ai_17374449
Among other things, a Kodak safety lecture discussed an employee that modified his Bullard Hood hose connection. He accidently hooked it up to a Nitrogen line. Three breaths later, he was unconscious, and he was dead before anyone could resuscitate him.
They'd better make damn sure NO ONE can defeat the safeties to get into that room. You'll never know what hits you.
Atkins simply works for those that have issues with carbohydrates.
The whole foods diet you recommend will kill most diabetics - far too many simple starches and sugars. My dad was getting worse on things like that until he dropped the American Diabetes diet, dropped the Whole Foods diet, kept walking and doing pushups and crunches, and then did Atkins exactly by the numbers. Lost 60 pounds, got his HDL LDL and Triglycerides all into normal range and even reversed the insulin sensitivity problems he was having (probably more a result of the loss of fat than the diet). Its not just the anectdotal either, the latest studies I recall hearing about put the 1 year weight loss for Atkins above all the other "name" diets. Pops is now on South Beach, which is like Atkins but has more fruit and veggies, and is completely off Lipitor, Metformin and Lisinopril.
I dont disagree that processed oods are proably bad - I avoid them too. But Atkins worked and saved my dad's life - so its not "a load of crap".
In a place I worked the computer room had a halon system. One day at shift change one of the operators caught a backpack strap on the mushroom button (even under the plastic mollyguard).. tore the button right off.
His first mistake was trying to put the button back.... whooosh!
halon stinks hours later.
The body does not need carbohydrates. Your body can run fine on ketones. In fact, the brain operates more efficiently on ketones than on glucose.
People have been living on this diet for a lot longer than it's been sold as a weight loss plan. People with certain types of seizures which cannot occur unless brain glucose is over a certain level live on it all their lives as a means of controlling seizures.
In addition, and this is one of the essential arguments in favor of the Atkins diet, this is more or less the diet that several peoples evolved to eat. Not everyone, of course; it depends largely on the domesticable cereals which were present where those peoples lived.
Finally, the Atkins diet does not completely contraindicate carbohydrates. You are expected to keep your intake low during the induction phase, but after you have lost weight you can if you like add in carbs until you begin to gain weight, then dial them back a bit and hold them there. For some people this is hundreds of grams a day, for some people only a couple of dozen. But the simple fact is that the Atkins diet does not prohibit all carbohydrates and your ignorance in this area is substantially telling.
Would you like to state your next objection so I can debunk it as well? I may not get to it today, but I can go on like this for weeks.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Inergen is an inert gas fire suppression system that does exactly the same thing with a much smaller environmental footprint. The gas is generated with similar equipment, and then stored in bottles (similar to Halon et. al.) and then when a fire is detected, the room is flooded with said gas. The installed system is also much less expensive than the equipment.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inergen
This is completely wrong. Halon (1301) does not stop fires by displacing oxygen - it stops them by disrupting the chemical reactions that form combustion (basically it soaks up most of the available free radicals). This allows it to be extremely effective in relatively low concentrations. It also makes it remarkably safe - you still have all the normal oxygen in the air, so it's not likely to do more than make you loopy.
In fact, Halon is safe enough that the standard Navy safety brief for an accidental Halon discharge spends no time on death by asphixiation (because there's basically no risk of that). Instead, they tell you to stop, duck, and cover - because the Halon's coming out really fast, and you want to keep all the stirred up dust out of your eyes and lungs, and cover your head in case a nozzle comes loose and hits you.
Atkins works great if you have low "metabolic resistance", where your metabolism shifts to burning fat and protein when your blood glucose levels fall below a certain level. I lost 35 pounds in 6 weeks doing it (10 pounds in the first week alone, not counting the two days it took for my glucose levels to drop to mostly nothing). If you don't have low metabolic resistance, it's going to be painful and it's not going to work.
Also, it is significantly better to have as much oxygen as possible while preventing fire -- flooding the center with pure nitrogen would be deadly unless you stopped while there was still enough O2 to breathe. According to the warning signs on the doors of the labs where I work, two breaths of pure nitrogen will knock you unconscious without any warning at all. Death will follow quickly...