4791 Selection and Sizing of Conductors Supplying Electrical Equipment That Must Remain Functional During A Fire
4791 Selection and Sizing of Conductors Supplying Electrical Equipment That Must Remain Functional During A Fire
Julian Wiatr
Zbigniew Hanzelka
David Chapman
Stefan Fassbinder
December 2010
Safety
Selection and sizing of conductors supplying electrical equipment
that must remain functional during a fire
http://www.leonardo-energy.org
Introduction
The maintenance of safety services in a building during an emergency is vital if the situation is to be contained and
the lives of occupants and emergency workers preserved. The first objective is to provide, as far as possible, safe
evacuation routes from the affected areas and to ensure that all services required for fighting the fire are maintained
for the required time. Another objective may be to ensure the preservation of services in areas of the building not
directly affected by fire to provide a safe environment for evacuees from affected areas, pending complete evacua-
tion, or the end of the incident. Finally, the preservation of property is important.
The time for which safety services are required to operate depends on the use of the building and the number and
type of occupants involved. While it may be feasible to evacuate a dwelling or a small office building in a short time,
larger or higher buildings, or those used by the public will take much longer1. The longer that safety services remain
operational, the better the chance of bringing a fire under control and reducing property damage.
Cables that are exposed to fire while being expected to retain their functionality and provide power to essential
equipment at another location must be appropriately selected and sized to take account of the increased electrical
resistance at elevated temperature. Manufacturers offer cables and accessories that will survive a standard cellulose
fire for 30, 60 or 90 minutes when correctly specified and installed.
Cables, including fire safety cables, are specified in terms that reflect their normal duty conditions; design parameters
under fire conditions are rarely, if ever, specified. The objective of this paper is to provide a clear methodology for
designing fire safety circuits based on the derivation and application of correction factors and standard cable param-
eters.
1
Following an explosion in World Trade Center 1 in 1993, the evacuation took more than 4 hours during which over 1000 people were injured, many due to smoke
inhalation. Fortunately, the fire had been extinguished.
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Fire Safety Cables
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1200
1029
1000 986
925
800 822
Temperauture (C) 761
658
600
556
482
400 425
329
200
0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140
Time (minutes)
1200
600
400
200
0 20
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140
Time (minutes)
3
Selection and sizing of conductors supplying electrical equipment
that must remain functional during a fire
http://www.leonardo-energy.org
1400
1350
1300 1300
1200 1200 1200
1140
1000
600
400
200
0 20
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140
Time (minutes)
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Fire Safety Cables
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2
In 1975 a fire in an office suite on the 11th floor of World Trade Centre 1 spread over 6 floors in the risers housing power and communications cables because they
had large floor openings and no fire stops. Fortunately, the fire did not break out of the riser. The fire burned for three hours, badly damaging part of one floor by
fire (900 m2), and six floors by smoke and water. Cost: $2 million.
5
Selection and sizing of conductors supplying electrical equipment
that must remain functional during a fire
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1 3
2 4
1 4
3 5
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where:
R20 is the conductor resistance at temperature of 20 °C, in Ω
α is the temperature coefficient of resistance at 20 °C, per K. α = 0.0039 for copper.
ΔT = Tk –20 is the temperature difference, in degrees K
Tk is the final temperature, in K.
At temperatures higher than +200 °C, the relation describing the conductor’s resistance becomes non-linear and is
given by the formula [13 21]:
R = R20 (1+ α 20 ΔT + β 20 ΔT 2 ) (3
where:
β20 = 6.0 x 10-7 K-2
Alternatively, application of the Wiedemann-Franz law yields:
⎛ T ⎞1.16 ⎛ T ⎞1.16
R = R20⎜ ⎟ = R20⎜ ⎟ (4
⎝ T20 ⎠ ⎝ 293 ⎠
where:
R is the resistance at temperature T
R20 is the resistance at 20 °C (293 K)
T is the temperature in K. i.e., temperature in °C + 273.
Neither approach is particularly accurate, giving resistance values that are slightly high by a few percent. Given the
many unknowns in a real fire situation, this small uncertainty is of little practical consequence. The important result
is that the resistance of a conductor specified at 70 °C rated cable is increased by a factor of about 4.5 under PH90
conditions. Equation 4 is used for all calculations in this paper.
Because buildings are often compartmentalised into fire zones to reduce fire spread, cables feeding fire protection
equipment are rarely exposed to fire temperatures over their entire length. The part of the cable not affected by
the fire will operate at the normal temperature appropriate to the loading, while that exposed to fire has increased
resistance. The task of the designer is to assess which areas may be simultaneously affected by fire in the worst case
and assess the proportion of cable length that may be affected. The total conductor resistance is then calculated by
assuming normal resistance for the length unaffected by fire and applying a multiplication factor to the length that
is affected.
((100 − y ) +( xm)) RN
RT = (5
100
Where
RT is the resistance of the conductors, in Ω
RN is the resistance of the conductor under normal conditions, in Ω
y is the percentage of the cable length estimated to be affected by fire
m is the resistance factor appropriate to the fire conditions as Table 2
7
Selection and sizing of conductors supplying electrical equipment
that must remain functional during a fire
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Fire Safety Cables
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where:
PH is the power dissipated in a unit length of conductor at the load current under fire conditions, in Watts
IH is the nominal rating of the protective device, in Amps
RH is the resistance of a unit length of conductor under fire conditions, in Ω
PN is the power dissipated in a unit length of conductor for a conductor temperature of 70 °C
IN is the normal rated current of the conductor for a conductor temperature 70 °C
RN is the resistance of a unit length of conductor at 70 °C.
Hence,
IN2 RN IN2
IH2 ≤ =
RH m
IN
IH ≤ (8
m
The current carrying capacity, quoted for the cable for normal duty in embedded conduit, must therefore be √m times
the current carrying capacity required under fire conditions.
As an example, a cable is required to carry 10 A under PH90 conditions. The protective device is rated at 16 A so the
cable must have a current carrying capacity, at 70 °C conductor temperature, of √m times 16 A, i.e., 16 * 2.12 = 34 A.
As a result, a 10 mm2 conductor might be chosen.
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Selection and sizing of conductors supplying electrical equipment
that must remain functional during a fire
http://www.leonardo-energy.org
The characteristic curve of a typical circuit breaker is shown in Figure 7. The so-called ‘inverse time’ part of the characteris-
tic is designed to protect against over-current. It allows for substantial short overloads without tripping, because the rate
at which the cable conductor temperature rises due to the extra heat generated is relatively slow due to the high specific
heat of the copper conductors. As the over-current level increases, the time to respond reduces rapidly to restrict the rise
in temperature and reduce the risk of damage. The characteristic takes advantage of the inherent short time over-cur-
rent tolerance of the cable and allows short duration inrush currents to flow without tripping the breaker.
The instantaneous characteristic is intended to respond very rapidly to fault current. Fast action is needed because
fault currents are high enough to pose a high risk of damage to load circuits.
It must be remembered that the objective of protecting a fire safety cable under fire conditions is very different; in
normal circumstances the cable itself must be protected from damage to preserve its future service life but, under fire
conditions, the functionality of the service provided must be preserved while the cable has no remaining useful life.
In any event, the existence of a significant overload condition under fire conditions will inevitably lead to loss of the
circuit and the functionality of the load due to either cable damage or operation of the breaker. There are some miti-
gating factors. Firstly, the circuit is likely to supply fixed equipment so is not subject to random changes in the same
way as other final circuits and is not likely to be overloaded as long as it and the load equipment remains undamaged.
Secondly, the conductor is already oversized and so has a considerably higher thermal capacity than normal, giving
some protection against short overloads.
Protection against fault current is very important because a fault may pose a danger to rescue services and may be
the cause of fire spread. Meeting the fault current criterion requires that the loop impedances – both the line-neutral
and line-protective conductor loops – are sufficiently low for the protective device to operate if a fault should occur
at the remote end of the circuit. It must be remembered that the tolerance on the instantaneous trip current of circuit
breakers is rather wide – the actual trip current may be up to twice the nominal current.
Care should be taken to ensure that the protective device is capable of breaking the prospective short circuit current
at the source. This level is likely to be higher than normally encountered in a final circuit because the circuit origin is
likely to be electrically closer to the point of common coupling to improve resilience.
The unit conductor resistance under fire conditions is:
Rh = rm mΩ (9
where
Rh is the resistance of one metre of conductor under fire conditions, mΩ
r is the resistance of one metre of conductor at 70 °C (from cable tables), mΩ
m is found from Table 2.
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UN
0,9UN
0,7UN
n
nS
11
Selection and sizing of conductors supplying electrical equipment
that must remain functional during a fire
http://www.leonardo-energy.org
The voltage drop in a squirrel-cage induction motor feeder circuit during motor start should not exceed the values
given in Table 4.
100 ∗ 3
ΔU% = ∗ (RT ∗ cos ϕr + X ∗ sin ϕr ) ∗ Ir ( 11
Un
where:
RT is the motor feeder circuit resistance under fire conditions, calculated using equation 6 or 7, in Ω
X is the motor feeder circuit reactance, in Ω
Un is nominal voltage, in Volts
IR is the motor starting current, according to manufacturer’s data, in Amps
ΔV% is the permissible percentage voltage drop at which starting can be guaranteed, according to manufac-
turer’s data
cosϕr is the power factor of the motor at start-up, according to manufacturer’s data.
Since the power factor of an induction motor is low during start-up, the reactance of the circuit should be taken into
account when calculating voltage drop.
Because of the high starting current and high circuit resistance, it will be necessary to oversize the circuit conductors
appreciably. Methods of reducing the starting current by wye-delta switching or soft starting1 should be considered,
although oversizing will still be necessary.
4. Conclusion
Fire safety circuits require a careful design if they are to perform well. The designer must take into account the in-
creased resistance of the conductors and the consequent effects on current carrying capacity, voltage drop and short
circuit capacity.
This paper has discussed how the standard 70 °C parameters can be used with simple multiplication factors to predict
performance.
(Endnotes)
1 ‘Basics for practical operation Motor starting’, Rockwell Automation, http://literature.rockwellautomation.com/
idc/groups/literature/documents/wp/mot-wp003_-en-p.pdf
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