Performance of New Smoke Alarms and Aerosol Measurements for a Range of Nuisance Cooking Sources in a Mock Kitchen

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Abstract

New smoke alarms that have passed the broiling hamburger nuisance test introduced in 2015 to ANSI/UL 217 Standard for Safety Smoke Alarms have reached the market. This cooking scenario was selected to be representative of cooking nuisance sources generally. The current study compares the nuisance alarm resistance between new smoke alarms and legacy alarm designs to a variety of cooking scenarios. A series of cooking experiments are conducted with an electric-coil cooktop and oven surrounded by mock cabinets and the smoke alarms mounted on ceiling panels in the mock-kitchen. A variety of smoke alarm types and models are tested, including four smoke alarm models that have passed the current 9th Edition of ANSI/UL 217 and six legacy models, either ionization, photoelectric, or dual-type, certified to the previous Edition. Also during the tests, the aerosols produced from the cooking were characterized using an electrical low pressure cascade impactor to quantify the aerosol concentrations and diameters generated by the nuisance sources during the experiment and at the time of alarm. The alarm activation results showed that the new alarms as a group were not clearly superior in nuisance alarm resistance to the selected cooking scenarios compared to the legacy designs. While the broiling hamburger nuisance test added to ANSI/UL 217 may not be sufficient to prevent nuisance alarms across all cooking scenarios, it does provide a performance baseline to ensure newer alarms that need to meet the more stringent flaming and smoldering fire tests are not overly sensitive to nuisance sources.

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Fire detection

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