The Patol 5000 Series of equipment is specifically designed for the detection of fire hazards whilst materials are being moved such as on conveyor belt systems. The equipment is particularly suited to coal handling plants, however other transported materials and mechanisms (road / rail) have equal potential as fire protection applications.
The 5000 system employs enhanced Infrared monitoring technology that enables the detection of both small glowing embers within direct sight of the sensor, and high energy sources buried within the transported material that would not be registered by other types of flame, spark or ember detector.
By the use of both optical filtering and electronic analysis of the various parameters the system is blind to visible light from the sun or local luminaires, whilst being able to detect relatively low temperature material moving through the field of view.
 

The operation of the Patol infra-red sensors is such that they respond to changes in incident infrared radiation. The infrared detectors are design to monitor materials moving through the "field of veiw".
The width of this "field" is set by the height and angle of the sensor, which for 5010 and 5011 sensor heads is shown in figure 2.
Patol's Series 5000 Infra-red Heat Detectors have a primary role in conveyor detection. However, wider "transit" paths can be accommodated making road and rail monitoring readily practical. Applications also exist in both the food and process industries. A special hazard has successfully been protected which is tobacco drying in the cigarette/cigar process.

A typiclal arrangement for an infra-red sensor head monitoring a conveyor is shown in figure 2. It should be noted that in practice the "field of view" may extend past the actual "belt" width, as normal personnel activity on side-walkways will not initiate alarms.