Fire rated cables standards development - update

The purpose of the paper is to educate safety, facility and design engineers about recent standards development with regards to fire rated cables and a new cable test method for the Petro-Chemical industry. The paper will summarize current standards and will introduce the new IEEE 1717, “Standard for Testing Circuit Integrity Cables Using a Hydrocarbon Pool Fire Test Protocol” currently under development at IEEE Insulated Conductor Committee (ICC). The scope of IEEE 1717 is to provide cable and/or system requirements and methods for performing circuit integrity cable testing on energized low voltage power, control, and instrumentation cables at temperatures and heat fluxes simulating a Hydrocarbon Pool Fire (HPF). The paper will explain the reasons for choosing the UL 1709 furnace test with the electrical set up from UL 2196 as the basis for IEEE 1717. The paper will cover the recent draft of API 2218 “Fireproofing Practices in Petroleum and Petrochemical Processing Plants” and related fire tests that are mentioned in the standard such as: UL 1709, ASTM 1529 and UL 2196. In addition, API 14 FZ “Recommended Practice for Design, Installation, and Maintenance of Electrical Systems for Fixed and Floating Offshore Petroleum Facilities for Unclassified and Class I, Zone 0, Zone 1 and Zone 2 Locations” will be reviewed. The summary will cover the fire protection requirements in areas that may be subjected to a HPF. The last standard that is covered in this paper and is under development is IEEE 1810 “IEEE Guide for the Installation of Fire-Rated Cables suitable for Hydrocarbon Pool Fires for Critical, and Emergency Shutdown Systems in Petroleum and Chemical Industries”.