Cable Fires Pose Major Risk: New Rubber Jacket Reduces Fire Damage

21-Feb-2002

The new terminal at Munich's Franz-Josef Strauss Airport will be spared the sort of fire damage and casualties sustained at Düsseldorf Airport in 1996. An innovative rubber used in the cable jacket underlies a new approach to fire prevention. Wacker's specialty rubber keeps functioning up to 1,100 °C (nearly the melting point of copper), which rules out short circuits. It forms an electrically insulating ceramic layer when burned. In contrast, conventional plastics form ash at much lower temperatures, thus exposing the bare copper wire. In the event of fire, the wire then expands and causes short circuiting.

Furthermore, the specialty rubbers developed by Munich-based Wacker-Chemie give off considerably less smoke. The result is greater safety, because most fire fatalities (some 90 percent) are due to toxic fumes. Seventeen people died in the Düsseldorf Airport fire – all victims of smoke inhalation.

A lesson was learned from the worst fire disaster in German airport history: Wacker-Chemie developed its new specialty rubber cable jacket specifically for maximum fire prevention in the rebuilt Düsseldorf Airport. Our product is so reliable that it has also been used in Munich's new terminal by cable manufacturer Kabelwerk Eupen, the electrical contractors Kreutzpointner and Bauer (known as the "Terminal 2 Electrical Taskforce"), as well as lead contractor Flughafen München Bau GmbH. According to Werner Klein from the Kreutzpointner/Bauer Electrical Taskforce: "We gave top priority to safety. The new safety cables in Terminal 2 will eliminate a major risk factor once and for all. When it comes to passenger safety, it's essential to invest in state-of-the-art engineering."

The severest test facing safety cables is performed by the Underwriters Laboratories, an independent test institute in the USA. The new safety rubber came through this test (UL 2196) with flying colors. It has also become an established feature of other landmark buildings. For example, the Marriott chain modernized all its American hotels with these UL 2196-compliant safety cables. The elite American universities MIT and Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, also chose Wacker's safety rubber. And cabling in Moscow's television tower, which was largely destroyed in a fire in 2000, is now being protected with flame-resistant Wacker rubber.

https://www.chemeurope.com/en/news/8651/cable-fires-pose-major-risk-new-rubber-jacket-reduces-fire-damage.html