RESPONSES_TO_QUESTIONS.docx

RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS

QUESTION:

On page 2 of the specification document, it says:

"The vendor shall provide the necessary gas safety cabinets, regulators, sensors and alarms as described below."

On page 4, it says, "The cabinets shall include provisions to connect to an external water supply for the sprinkler head, and for electrical connection to an external gas monitoring / alarm system (provided by NRL). " It is not clear if vendor is required to provide toxic gas monitoring sensors as per page 2 or just provide an interface for NRL-provided sensors as per page 4. Can further definition be provided of what 'external gas monitoring / alarm system (provided by NRL)' will comprise?

We can offer discrete sensors, a complete sensing system, or electrical interfaces to existing sensor alarms, and so on. Can further clarification be provided as to which sensors are or are not provided and what facility connections are or are not provided?

RESPONSE:

NRL / Building 208 has an existing stand-alone building-wide toxic gas monitoring system. This system will monitor the atmosphere in the room independently of any vendor provided equipment.

This system is capable of receiving an electrical signal from a vendor supplied item such as a gas cabinet, abatement module, or process chamber enclosure. That signal can be as simple as a relay opening or closing, signaling normal operation or a problem.

The vendor is required to include toxic gas monitoring sensors and a local alarm in the pieces of equipment they provide to detect any leaks as close to the source as possible. For example, each gas cabinet should have an appropriate toxic gas sensor, the enclosure of the process chamber should have appropriate sensors, the abatement module should have appropriate sensors. These sensors should trigger a local alarm on that particular module to clearly identify the location of the leak. These sensors should also trigger some kind of local electrical signal that the existing, building-wide monitoring system can detect — that can be as simple as a relay opening or closing, and that relay will be hardwired to the building-wide system by NRL personnel.

Gas cabinets housing a flammable gas are required to have an internal sprinkler head. The NRL house sprinkler water supply will be connected to that gas cabinet by NRL personnel.