IMPROVEMENT IN FIRE SAFETY FEATURES OF ELECTRICAL CONDUCTORS AND CABLES

There is ever increasing awareness and need for wire and cable materials that exhibit improved fire safety. The traditional characteristics of insulation resistance, water resistance, oil resistance, sunlight resistance, abrasion resistance, crush resistance, deformation resistance and fire resistance are not sufficient for all occasions. The improvements not only involve delayed ignition, limited propagation and lower smoke and toxic gas emissions to protect people, but also lower corrosivity to protect sensitive electronic equipment. Materials compounding technology has significantly advanced to make this possible. New non-halogen, limited smoke, low corrosivity, low toxicity materials for low voltage power, control, signal, instrumentation and data as well as medium voltage power applications are covered in this paper.