Experimental and numerical analysis of the influence of cable tray arrangements on the resulting mass loss rate and fire spreading

Abstract

Summary In the context of industrial buildings and power plants, electrical installations and cable trays represent a main fuel load and a potential initial fire source due to possible short circuits or comparable malfunction. Furthermore, a fire can spread from one tray to additional trays mounted above and/or horizontally on one tray. Because of the high significance of cable fires, several research projects have been carried out, investigating the fire behaviour of cables from small‐scale tests, eg, the cone calorimeter, up to large‐scale tests, analysing complete cable tray constructions. The goal of the work presented in this paper is the extension of the knowledge regarding the influence of geometrical parameters like the packing density and tray distance on the burning behaviour and fire spread of cable tray installations. The results are considered, together with test results from the literature, to quantify the main physical parameters describing the burning behaviour. In a next step, the general applicability of these parameters as input data for the parametrization of the source term of numerical simulations is shown. The test results show that the burning behaviour and the fire spreading highly depend on the cable arrangement of the cables on the cable tray, in combination with other boundary conditions. By applying the results as input for a fire simulation, the mass loss rate is considered appropriately.

Ignition and Charring of PVC-Based Electric Cables

“…Four PVC-based electric cables commonly found in NPPs [19,20] are considered in this study. They differ from their structure, geometry and composition.…”

On the Relation between Strength and Stiffness of Cable Tray

“…For flame retardant capability of cable tray, there have been growing interests in understanding and predicting the fire development since the cable tray fire in 1975 at Browns Ferry Nuclear Power Plant. Most of the work were concentrated on experimental and numerical analyses of cable tray fires, in either open atmosphere or in confined and mechanically ventilated compartments [19][20][21][22], as well as the fire behavior of the cable tray arrangements [23,24]. e models for flame spread behavior were developed to estimate the heat release rate for the vertical cable tray fire [25] and to predict the fire development of the cable tray based on the computational fluid dynamics [26].…”

Bench-scale experimental study on the fire behavior of electric cable arrays by considering different layouts

“…Huang et al12 studied the burning behavior of three cable trays with loose and dense cable arrangements. Siemon et al 13 experimentally and numerically investigated the influence of cable tray arrangements on the mass loss rate and fire spreading. Elliot and Whiteley14 explored the method of measuring small-diameter wire and cable by cone calorimetry, and compared the four different combustion samples prepared by random winding, symmetric winding, singlelayer laying and multi-layer laying of the sample cable.…”