Experimental Study of Fire Characteristics of a Tray Flame Retardant Cable

The present study has been conducted to investigate the fire combustion properties and fire behavior of an IEEE-383 qualified flame retardant cable. The reference reaction rate and reference temperature which are commonly used in pyrolysis model of fire propagation process was obtained by the thermo-gravimetric analysis of the cable component materials. The mass fraction of FR-PVC sheath abruptly decreased near temperature range of $250{\sim}260^{\circ}C$ and its maximum reaction rate was about $2.58{\times}10^{-3}$ [1/s]. For the XLPE insulation of the cable, the temperature causing maximum mass fraction change was ranged about $380{\sim}390^{\circ}C$ and it has reached to the maximum reaction rate of $5.10{\times}10^{-3}$ [1/s]. The flame retardant cable was burned by a pilot flame meker buner and the burning behavior of the cable was observed during the fire test. Heat release rate of the flame retardant cable was measured by a laboratory scale oxygen consumption calorimeter and the mass loss rate of the cable was calculated by the measured cable mass during the burning test. The representative value of the effective heat of combustion was evaluated by the total released energy integrated by the measured heat release rate and burned mass. This study can contribute to study the electric cable fire and provide the pyrolysis properties for the computational modeling.