CAM-422

A hot spot is already smoking in the waste bunker

Five in the morning in the tipping bunker. The waste pile reaches halfway up the wall and on one side a column of white smoke is rising, with a small flame at its base. One operator in a hard hat is on the radio, leaning on the wall; another is watching from the walkway. The wheel loader is parked at the back. With a thermal camera the hot spot shows before the flame does, and in a waste pile that means hours earlier.

CAM-422 · WASTE BUNKER · HOT SPOT

What IRIS understands

What it recognises in this scene

flame at the base of the heap
column of smoke rising from the bunker
tipping bunker with the waste pile
wheel loader parked on the apron
operator calling it in on the radio

What this camera measures

An alert says something is happening. The reading says how much.

02:40Time of the first thermal reading
05:05Time the flame became visible
2 h 25 minMargin between the heat and the flame
2People in shot
5Tips counted onto that pile

The figures on this screen are an example from the illustration, not any client's measurement.

The rule

You decide once. IRIS applies it always.

the thermal camera reads a hot spot in the pile, or smoke or flame appears in the bunker

Then

alert the control room and the loader driver with the camera and the time
save the thermal image and the visible image from the same minute
keep the alert open and repeat it while the spot is still hot

The instruction that set it up«Tell me as soon as there is a hot spot, smoke or flame in the bunker, even if there is no visible fire yet.»

What changes

What changes for whoever answers for the plant

That margin is what you are buying. Once there is a flame in a bunker, the pile is burning from the inside and putting it out costs water, hours and a plant shutdown. With the thermal reading the alert arrives while it is still a hot spot: the loader pulls that heap aside, it gets wetted down, done. The plant manager gets the camera, the time of the first reading and the video of what was tipped there beforehand.

What people usually ask

How much earlier does a thermal camera see it than the flame?

In a waste pile, hours. The fire starts inside the heap and takes time to reach the surface; the thermal camera reads the heat on the outside long before there is visible smoke. That margin is everything: it leaves time to pull the material aside with the loader and wet it down. IRIS reports with the thermal image and the normal one from the same minute, and what happens next is the plant’s call.

Do you need a special camera?

For the hot spot, yes: you need a thermal camera, because an ordinary one only sees smoke and flame once they are there. IRIS works with both: the thermal one gives the early alert and the ordinary one gives the picture anybody can read. Without a thermal camera IRIS still detects smoke and flame, but the hours of advantage are gone.

Does IRIS call the fire brigade?

No. IRIS alerts the people the plant has written into the rule: the control room, the loader driver, the shift manager. Calling the fire brigade, triggering the emergency plan or halting tipping is a person’s decision. IRIS supplies the exact time, the thermal image and the video of what was tipped there beforehand — which is what the insurer and the regulator ask for afterwards.

Other cameras

Demo · IRIS at work

A camera looks. IRIS understands what it sees.

An extract of the real screen, no voice-over and hands-free. Each round poses another situation. What sits behind it is a good deal bigger than what you see.