THE REVOLUTION IN FIRE SAFETY CABLES IS CALLED PRAFLA®+
The overwhelming majority of electrical wiring designers and implementing companies have encountered complications when designing a fire safety solution or trying realize its requirements. It is often the case that fire route requirements are not in line with the technical characteristics of cables that can be purchased on the market. Because of their sheathing and insulating materials, fire safety cables are one of the most technologically advanced cables. They save lives thanks to their features and significantly help intervening fire and rescue services, but they also have a dark side.
Fire safety cables can be manufactured in two main versions: cables with functional integrity during a fire and cables without functional integrity. Functional integrity is ensured by wires insulated with silicone polymers, which harden into ceramic to create a safe shell for the copper conductor and prevent short circuit between the individual cable wires during a fire. These cables power fire safety devices such as fire fans and smoke and heat exhaust flaps, emergency lighting, EPS, fire and evacuation lifts, etc. Although we don't think about the cables when we visit a shopping center with our family, a theater or museum with our partner, or the airport and railway station on a business trip, they have an irreplaceable role in saving human lives and property in a fire.
The functional ability, that is the ability of a cable to transmit voltage, current, signal or data even in a fire, is not the only difficult task that cables must meet in a fire. Current legislation requires certain types of fire compartments, such as escape routes, areas of gathering, and so on, to have cables with B2CA s1d1 reaction to fire classification. This high requirement means that the cables do not contribute to the deterioration of the building in a fire by spreading the fire over the surface of the cable, producing dense toxic halogen gases, dripping burning particles, etc. These features are also required in the case of cables with no functional integrity to increase the chance of people in the building safely escaping from the building in the event of a fire, and to help with the intervention by fire and rescue services.
The chemical composition of these modern sheathing materials, however, takes its toll in the form of absorbency and UV instability of the cable sheaths. These negative properties therefore significantly limit the use of these cables to dry indoor spaces. For a long time, the installation of fire safety cables between buildings, on damp underground floors or roof structures was a major complication that required expensive measures to prevent the influence of moisture or UV radiation.
The well-established brand of PRAFla® halogen-free cables from Prague-based cable manufacturer PRAKAB has gained one small "+", offering great solutions to problems with installing cable routes in unsuitable conditions. Cables with the PRAFla®+ trademark are protected from moisture and UV radiation thanks to their new sheathing. After several years of challenging development, PRAKAB is launching new PRAFla®+ cables and revolutionizing the installation of fire safety cables, demonstrating its leading position in the market with halogen-free cables again. The high added value of these products is evidenced by the reference projects in which the cables were used, the biggest one being the reconstruction of the National Museum in Prague.
PRAFla®+ can withstand the environments listed below defined by ČSN 33 2000-5-51.
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