Holyoake launches new fire-smoke damper

HFS Damper unique in the New Zealand & Australian Fire Protection Industry

By Kieren Roe

The HFS Damper is the latest fire-smoke damper development from Holyoake. The damper, developed in Auckland, NZ, and tested independently in Australia, is the product of considerable effort from a small, dedicated team. As an opposed-blade damper, this addition to Holyoake’s line of re protection products is the first of its kind manufactured in New Zealand.

The damper can be used as a fire, smoke, re-smoke, and air (smoke exhaust) damper and is suitable for a variety of installations; the damper can also be set for the balancing of air flows. Similar to Holyoake’s IBD-FS Damper, no packing of the penetration (expansion gap) is required. The damper is certified for a wide range of wall and floor systems and will be available in a single section ranging from 200 mm wide by 200 mm high up to 1,200 mm by 1,200 mm. Multi-section dampers for larger penetrations will also be manufactured, with options as large as two sections wide by two sections high.

The HFS Damper is compliant to AS 1682.1 and has been tested to AS 1530.4:2014 Section 11 for fire damper and air transfer grille assemblies in ducts as well as to AS 1530.7-2007 for smoke control assemblies. The air-control damper requirements in a smoke extraction system are especially onerous, as the damper must operate after the two-hour test at 200°C.

The required performance criteria for this opposed-blade operable damper have been a key factor in its development, as the damper needed to perform across a wide range of temperatures while experiencing a differential pressure of 300 Pa. The challenge was to keep within the allowable leakage throughout the entire four-hour test period.

The maximum allowable leakage rate is 360 m3/hr/m2 and temperatures range from 20°C to 200°C for smoke testing and up to 1,150°C after four hours of fire testing.

The HFS Damper performed exceptionally well in every test, both vertically and horizontally, with the horizontal ( floor) fire test achieving the lowest leakage rate of any fire damper in our range – 71 m3/hr/m2, which equates to 20% allowable leakage at the end of the four-hour test. This means that the HFS fire-smoke damper has achieved the leakage integrity rates based on ISO 10294-1 ‘S’ Classification.