Fire Behavior of Electrical Installations in Buildings

Jadwiga Fangrat,Katarzyna Kaczorek-Chrobak,Bartłomiej K Papis

doi:10.3390/en13236433

Jadwiga Fangrat, Katarzyna Kaczorek-Chrobak + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/en13236433

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Journal: Energies	Publication Date: Dec 4, 2020
Citations: 3	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Instytut Techniki Budowlanej

Abstract

Electrical installations are a significant component of fire load inside a building, although they are often neglected in the overall fire safety analysis and are not subjected to any kind of fire safety evaluation of a building. A typical electrical installation unconnected to the mains was experimentally studied using a single burning item (SBI) test apparatus, fixed to two types of popular non-combustible or combustible (wooden-based) backgrounds simulating a typical building internal wall or ceiling. The semi-real scale test showed that poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) cable, commonly used in installations in buildings in Europe and used in SBI tests, showed high fire properties related to heat release, smoke production and flame spread to other interior elements. The results of the electrical circuit connected to the main measurements carried out showed a significant impact of the heating effect towards the uncovered surface socket, causing the possibility of easy ignition inside the installation. In conclusion, it was found that even a relatively simple and short section of electrical installation resulted in a significant increase in the heat release rate and smoke generation parameters, obtained during the SBI tests, and as a consequence a reduction of one or two reaction to fire euroclasses of construction materials for internal walls.

Highlights

The first attempt at regulating the use of electrical installations dates to 1907 [1], while more recent exemplary contributions on this subject are the works of [2,3,4,5]
“a need to capture in one location the wealth of electrical system design techniques that have been published in recent IEEE papers and other industry sources”
A risk of fire has to be taken into account for each electrical installation when designing the component circuit and device, when selecting the material in order to reducing the likelihood of a fire and in cases of their unpredictable and abnormal use and faulty operation or damage

Summary

Introduction

The first attempt at regulating the use of electrical installations dates to 1907 [1], while more recent exemplary contributions on this subject are the works of [2,3,4,5]. McClung and Hill [3] pointed out “a need to capture in one location the wealth of electrical system design techniques that have been published in recent IEEE papers and other industry sources”. In 2011, electric cables were added to the list of construction products in Europe [7]. Such building products like electrical cables and their installation ducts may cover an unexpectedly large surface inside buildings, often up to several hundred meters in one room or thousands of meters in one residential building, substantially increasing its overall fire load.

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