Fire-Resistant Cabling For Security Applications.
Fire-Resistant Cabling For Security – What cabling would you recommend for electronic security applications that demand cabling must be fire-resistant?
When looking for fire-rated security cables seek out products sheathed with ethylene-methylacrylate, which resists fire and has low smoke emission. EMA cables are also abrasion, oil and fuel resistant and able to still function to specification at 120 degrees C.
There are installation considerations with toughened cable – including the fact they should be installed with a bend radius of 6 times the external diameter. You’ll also need to hunt up porcelain fuse holders and fire-resistant fixings.
Vital subsystems that may need to be fire resistant in particular applications will include video surveillance, alarms, access control, EWIS, HVAC, lighting, fire and public address. Fire-rated cables will continue to operate during a fire for 2 hours or more – vital for situational awareness.
Fire-Resistant Cabling For Security
Make sure you don’t go for fire safety cables instead of fire-rated cables. While safety cables are designed not to roil out clouds of poisonous gas when their cable sheathing is exposed to fire, they won’t guarantee circuit integrity, maintain a power supply, or allow the passage of data and comms.
Cables meeting the Australian Standard will feature will feature silicone rubber sheathed conductors supported by mineral insulation and a thermoplastic or cross-linked polyolefin co-polymer sheathed cable.
When you start thinking fire-rated cabling products, consider Pirelli Cables’ Firestop range (LSTA-EMA), or Olex Cables’ Pyrolex range (FR/ES). High quality fire-rated cables will resist the propagation of flame (LOI=34), and will have a negligible smoke emission factor (2-5 per cent).
You can learn more about fire-resistant cables here or read more SEN news here.
“Fire-Resistant Cabling For Security Applications.”
