Real fire test of an electrical panel

A universal technology for protecting electrical installations from accidents and fires is being developed taking into account statistics and experimental data on fire danger. In the proposed article, appropriate attention is paid to electrical panels for which preliminary testing of components and modeling with a fire load adequate in quantity and composition of combustible materials has been performed. It is noted that the heat accumulation necessary for ignition occurred at an average multiplicity of overload currents due to resistive heating of the conductors. On the contrary, an arc breakdown with a high multiplicity of overload currents was accompanied only by an external light and sound effect, and it had no effect on the development of the fire. When testing the materials of circuit breaker housings, it was revealed that the sample with worse dielectric characteristics had increased fire resistance. The program of the main test provided for primary ignition, power outage and a similar repeated process. Such an experiment was accompanied by video recording, and the presented freeze-frames of important conditions confirm the development of a fire only under the condition of constant action of a powerful ignition source. As a result, the possibility of extinguishing by disconnecting the power supply without supplying a extinguishing agent, even with free air access, has been proven. For timely detection of abnormal situations, it is recommended to monitor non-electrical indicators, for example, smoke generation and connection temperature.