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- Cone calorimeter (2) (entfernen)
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The recently approved EU Construction Products Regulation (CPR) applies to cables as construction products.
The difficulty of predicting the fire performance of cables with respect to propagation of flame and contribution to fire hazards is well known. The new standard EN 50399 describes a full-scale test method for the classification of vertically mounted bunched cables according to CPR. Consideration of the material, time, and thus cost requires an alternative bench-scale fire test, which finds strong demand for Screening and development purposes. The development of such a bench-scale fire test to assess the fire Performance of multiple vertically mounted cables is described. A practical module for the cone calorimeter is proposed, simulating the fire scenario of the EN 50399 on the bench scale. The efficacy of this module in predicting full-scale CPR test results is shown for a set of 20 different optical cables. Key properties such as peak heat release rate (PHRR), fire growth rate (FIGRA), and flame spread are linked to each other by factors of around 5. In a case study, the bench-scale test designed was used to investigate the influence of the main components on the fire behaviour of a complex optical cable.
Scientific publications addressing the durability of the flame retardance of cables during their long-term application are rare and our understanding lacks. Three commercial flame retardants, aluminum hydroxide, aluminum diethyl phosphinate (AlPi-Et), and intumescent flame retardant based on ammonium polyphosphate, applied in ethylene-vinyl acetate copolymer (EVA) model cables, are investigated. Different artificial aging scenarios were applied: accelerated weathering (UV-irradiation/temperature/rain phases), humidity exposure (elevated temperature/humidity), and salt spray exposure. The deterioration of cables’ surface and flame retardancy were monitored through imaging, color measurements, attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and cone calorimeter investigations. Significant degradation of the materials’ surface occurred. The flame retardant EVA cables are most sensitive to humidity exposure; the cable with AlPi-Et is the most sensitive to the artificial aging scenarios. Nevertheless, substantial flame retardance persisted after being subjected for 2000 h, which indicates that the equivalent influence of natural exposure is limited for several years, but less so for long-term use.