23.04.2020 by Milena Riedl

A new milestone in fire testing of cables compliant to EN 50399

With the introduction of the revised EN 50399 standard, the next step has been taken for the fire safety in public buildings and installations. The standard describes the exact test conditions of cables or cable bundles to simulate realistic conditions in case of fire. NETZSCH TAURUS® Instruments now offers a standard cable (according to prEN 50399:2020) for fire testing in accordance with EN 50399 to match its Fire Testing System for Cables (KBT). Read more!

In the event of a fire, it is important to know how quickly a cable bundle burns down and to what extent burning parts fall off. In addition, the enormous amounts of the heat release during a fire favors the rapid progress of a fire in a large public building. These and other important properties, such as the formation of gases during combustion, can now be tested in accordance with the standards using a KBT (Fire Testing System for Cables). In Europe, cables are no longer allowed to be sold without a fire test certificate. Furthermore, law prohibits installation of untested cables in public buildings and facilities. To carry out the fire test, a defined quantity of a cable with a length of 3.5 m is fixed in parallel on a 4 m-long test ladder and inserted vertically into a combustion chamber (4 m high and 1 m wide). In the fire test, the cable bundle is exposed to a defined flame over a period of 20 minutes. The output of the special burner is standardized and precisely adjustable by software. The standard not only prescribes the necessary individual steps for carrying out this fire test, but also regulates the technical framework conditions and the likewise necessary calibrations of the burner output and the connected gas analysis system. NETZSCH TAURUS® Instruments now offers a standard cable (according to prEN 50399:2020) for fire testing in accordance with EN 50399 to match its Fire Testing System for Cables (KBT). With this standard cable, every operator of a cable fire test rig can prove repeatability and reproducibility of their instruments. This possibility was completely missing until now. The standard cable offers the following necessary characteristics:

  • Total heat release
  • Heat output rate
  • Index of fire development (FIGRA)
  • Total smoke development
  • Smoke development rate

The standard cable can be ordered from NETZSCH TAURUS® Instruments in various lengths. 

Contact us for more information: 

contact-ngb@NETZSCH.com