Investigation of the Flammability of Different Cables Using Pyrolysis Combustion Flow Calorimeter

Wire and cable fire has become the major cause of fire disaster in China. Effective evaluation and analysis of the flammability of cables are critical for developing new flame retardant cable materials by the industry and testing cables which have already been used in the market. Due to the complex internal structure of cable, it is difficult to investigate the complete pyrolysis and combustion of the cable sheath by using the Cone calorimeter and full-scale experiment. The recently developed pyrolysis combustion flow calorimeter (PCFC) is able to measure the vital information for evaluating the flammability of cable sheath using samples of milligram size. The current study aims to assess the flammability of eight samples of seven kinds of cables that are widely used in China using PCFC. The three important parameters related to fire hazard of materials, namely the heat release rate (HRR), ignition temperature (IT) and total heat release (THR), were measured and analyzed. Detailed differences in flammability among the eight samples were differentiated by PCFC.