Fire Survival Cables (Low-smoke Halogen-Free-LSHF) are used in various indoor and outdoor Applications in which maintenance of power supply during a fire is required and in areas where smoke and acid gas evolution could pose a hazard to personal or sensitive equipment in high-rise building, schools, hospitals, hotels, shopping centers, subway etc.
Electrical cables and wires are a significant fire safety issue in today’s buildings and installations:
If the insulating or jacketing materials in cables catch fire, they can represent a significant quality of fuel for fire, because of the sheer volume of cables in modern building (electrical, telephone, computer connections etc.)
Solid / Stranded Copper conductor lapped with Glass Mica tape, insulated with XLPE to form a core. Cores laid up together to form a power cable / control cable / Instrumentation cable with fire survival properties.
Conductor: Copper bare or tinned. Circular or sector shaped with Insulation : XLPE / LSZH Inner sheath: FRLS Amour: Wire or Strip Outer Sheath : FRLS / LSZH
This test is intended to evaluate cables which are designed as fire survival cables to be used for fire alarm circuits, emergency lighting, and cables for other emergency services. The test establishes whether a cable can maintain electrical circuit integrity for a time up to 3 hours at temperatures ranging from 650 °C up to in excess of 950 °C. The energized cable (at the rated voltage) is mounted horizontally in a test chamber and is exposed to a gas flame from a ribbon type burner, adjusted to give the appropriate temperature. There are many variations of this test using different conditions and a cable is rated depending on how the cable performs in the various categories. These categories can be summarized as follows:
BS 6387 (Category W): Cables are subjected to fire at 650 °C for 15 minutes, then at 650°C with water Spray for further 15 minutes.