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

The Premises

Biruni University’s faculties include medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, health sciences, education, engineering and natural sciences. The university has a vast campus that spans an open area of 70,000 m2. The FDAS 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 people will be on-site across the campus.

Fire Detection System

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 provide the optimal fire detection for the university’s buildings, students, staff and visitors.

The chosen system comprises more than 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 two 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 FDAS due to the long distances between some of the buildings.

Levent Aydın, Head of Support Services Directorate at Biruni University, comments: “We were very impressed by the expertise and technical support provided by GFE Turkey even before awarding them the contract. Their 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 system they designed meets our needs not just today but also in the future due to the flexibility of the system to expand if we add new buildings. The installation and commissioning ran seamlessly, and 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, who operates out of GFE Turkey’s headquarters in Istanbul, adds: “GFE Turkey has been operating in Turkey since 2013 and it remains a strategically important country for GFE. We were delighted to be chosen for this project not just because we fully understood our customer’s requirements and were able to meet them, but also because of our technical expertise and how user friendly our system is compared to alternative systems they looked at. GFE’s fully addressable system is an ideal solution for the vast campus and buildings at Biruni University.”