GFE chosen to protect Turkey’s largest comprehensive health university

The academic institution, which is located in Istanbul’s city centre, is a private one founded by the World Education Foundation, which supports education, health and cultural projects. Circa 6,000 students are enrolled at Biruni University, among them over 400 overseas students.

Biruni University’s faculties include medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, health sciences, education, engineering and natural sciences. The campus is vast and spans an open area of 70,000 m².

The fire detection and alarm system covers 20,000 m² of buildings on the campus, including a 153-bed hospital, a dental healthcare facility, hi-tech labs, computer rooms and a campus library. On a typical day, 800 individuals will be present on-site across the campus.

Design, installation and commissioning

The design, installation and commissioning of the fire detection system for Biruni University was undertaken by GFE Turkey. Given the size of the campus and the buildings that had to be protected, an addressable system with high-capacity loop panels was recommended as it would then provide the optimal fire detection for resident buildings, students, staff and visitors.

The chosen system comprises upwards of 1,100 GFE devices, including 1,000 ZEOS addressable smoke detectors, 20 ZEOS addressable heat detectors, 150 addressable manual Call Points and two addressable gas detectors, all of which all controlled through a duo of GFE’s addressable fire alarm control panels.

When designing the system, GFE Turkey had to proactively manage a number of challenges, including elevators, pressurising fans, dampers and photocell doors. Also, as the project progressed, it became necessary to increase the number of zones covered by the fire detection and alarm system due to the long distances between some of the buildings.

Expertise and technical support

Levent Aydın, head of the support services directorate at Biruni University, commented: “We were very impressed by the expertise and technical support provided by GFE Turkey even before awarding the company this contract. GFE’s experts worked closely with our electricians who, although very technically competent, are not experts in fire detection. The team clearly understood the specific requirements of protecting a vast university campus and we are confident that the designed system meets our needs not just today, but also in the future due to the flexibility for expansion if we add new buildings.”

Aydin added: “The installation and commissioning procedures ran seamlessly. We are now looking to set up an ongoing maintenance contract to ensure the system continues to operate at its optimal performance.”

Murat Efir, regional director (Turkey and Balcans) at GFE, observed: “Turkey remains a strategically important country for GFE. We were delighted to be chosen for this project because we fully understood our customer’s requirements and were able to meet them. GFE’s fully addressable system is an ideal solution for the vast campus and buildings at Biruni University.”