An Introduction to Photoluminescent Safety Egress Systems!  

Earthquakes, Natural Disaster, Acts of Terrorism, Power Failures, Fires can happen at any time of the day or night and panic and fear can often grip us all. We all know that disasters lurk around every corner and they can happen at anytime, anywhere and without warning.

Even during daylight hours people can still be caught in the dark. Large office buildings during the day can suffer Blackout conditions. Normal Daylight is unable to provide light to the core of the Building and when power failure occurs many people can be plunged and left stranded in total darkness.

All of us at one time or another will encounter or deal with disasters in greater or lesser magnitude. Our measure of preparedness dictates how well we weather such events, do we come out unharmed, or looking like we've been through a major war, or maybe worse! Sometimes disasters are relatively minor, such as a simple 2 minute power failure and occasionally, thankfully less often, they can be horrendous!

All of these extremes fall within the realm of disaster planning.

All levels of disaster must be examined thought out, discussed, planned, implemented, and most importantly (and most often forgotten) tested over and over again.

N73% of deaths in fires in buildings are caused by smoke. Fires can produce dense smoke which can quickly fill buildings from the ceiling down within minutes.

Many accidents can happen when people try to evacuate buildings during power failures and fires, when lighting is limited or no longer available. (Even Emergency Back up power can fail)!

A simple Long-persistence Photoluminescent Emergency Egress System, marking out escape routes can make an important contribution to people's abilities to find their way out of a building quickly, efficiently and above all safely.

Documented Reports show that on September 11th 2001 Twin Towers, who escaped the collapse can attribute or at least in part their escape due, to the fact that placement of Photoluminescent paint and markings on the egress paths assisted occupants during egress and that training programs had been put in place following the bombing of the World Trade Centre 1993.

Photoluminescent materials and the planning of such these systems, is the basis for this presentation.

This presentations explains what a Long-Persistence Photoluminescent Emergency Egress System is and how it can further contribute to human safety in circumstances in which there is;

• Reduced lighting or smoke from fires in buildings.
• Where there are way finding difficulties.
• Where not all routes are familiar to the majority of  building  users.
• The effectiveness of Photoluminescent materials are appraised in relation to electrical lighting systems.

Although not yet introduced fully into codes and standards, recent research and development work in USA, Great Britain Germany, Sweden, suggests that a Photoluminescent escape system, if correctly applied, can be more effective and efficient than Standard emergency lighting in terms of maintenance, costs, and as an aid to Safe evacuation.

Most people are unfamiliar with the word Photoluminescent and if we were to use the term “Glow in the Dark” or “Luminous” most people would associate it with novelty toys or in worst case scenario, they would associate it to Radio Active Materials. 

Few recognize or realize the actual Safety Benefits of Photoluminescent (Glow in the Dark) materials for use in life saving situations.