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Technical University of Denmark is packed with safety
Building 310 at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) is a completely new research and laboratory unit at DTU Campus in Kgs. Lyngby, situated north of Copenhagen, and the 9,500 m2 large research and laboratory building won one of the awards for “Construction of the Year 2019”. The exciting construction includes i.a. DTU Energi, which has moved here from Risø. Research technician Jens Borchsenius and his colleagues have together with GEOPAL built up the house’s comprehensive safety system with gas detectors on all 5 floors and comprehensive software for processing the detectors’ measurements.
“After a period with other suppliers, we contacted GEOPAL in 2010 and equipped some of our rigs at DTU Risø with their gas detectors”, says Jens Borchsenius. “It worked so well that in 2012 we had their gas detection systems installed in two new buildings, and the result here was just as convincing. That’s why we have been using gas detection equipment from GEOPAL ever since, because their equipment just works – simple, logical, user-friendly and then it was not a difficult choice finding a supplier of gas detection systems for DTU B310. In this building alone, more than 160 GEOPAL gas detectors are installed, and we still expect to have very low service costs and a service organization that works really efficiently.”
“We have a very critical mix of flammable and toxic gases in the pipes that run through the building to our laboratories – H2, CH4, O2, CO2, CO, NO, NH3 and a lot of special gases,” continues Jens Borchsenius, “and for both people and research processes, it is of high importance that the frequency of errors is as low as the safety is high, because if the detector system fails, the experiments will be shut down, so that the researchers and students lose time and data. They will have to start all over again, which costs oceans of time and money.”
“So our detector system just MUST work, and with my experience from the past, I am sure that today we have a safe and reliable system that we can have full confidence in” says Jens Borchsenius’ as his closing remark.
