• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.73-81
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• 2016

A self-regulating heating cable is an electrical heating element by flowing an electric current between parallel conductors filled with an extruded semi-conductive polymer. Self-regulating heating cables are used mainly for frost protection purposes because the construction is convenient and the price is low. On the other hand, structural problems with imperfections of the insulation can cause a fire despite their usefulness. This paper deduced a direct method to derive the cause by investigating the scene of a fire due to a self-regulating heating cable and analyzed the basic problem using fault tree analysis. In this paper, the actual fire scene was a cold storage warehouse, and fire investigation was conducted. After investigating the fire scene and fault tree analysis, the cause of the fire could be attributed to dielectric breakdown of the self-regulating heating cable. This paper could be utilized in the fire safety activities and similar fire investigations.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.7-13
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• 2024

This study examines the physical characteristics of self-regulating heating cables caused by increased temperature and fire risk due to local degradation. A thermo hygrostat system, a convection dryer, a digital multimeter (Agilent 34465 A), NI DAQ, and the LabVIEW program were used to assess the physical properties in response to temperature fluctuations. As the temperature increases, the resistance of the self-regulating heating cable increases; however, when the critical point is exceeded, the resistance sharply decreases. A problem arises when the resistance value cannot return to its original state even though the temperature is lowered to the initial state. Moreover, when the ambient temperature rises while power is applied, the resistance value initially increases, and the flowing current decreases, maintaining a constant state. However, when the critical temperature is exceeded, the flowing current increases because of a rapid decrease in the resistance value, progressing to ignition. When the resistance value decreases because of the deterioration of one local area, the total resistance value becomes less than the initial resistance value. Therefore, the flowing current increases and an ignition problem occurs at one location where deterioration occurs. Despite the sustained flames and arcs resulting from the changes in the overall physical properties of the self-regulating heating cable and resistance variations due to local decline, the fire continued as the flowing current was lower than the operating current of the circuit breaker, failing to cut the power. In the case of self-regulating heating cables and heating wires, which are the leading causes of fires in winter, efforts are needed to ensure the need for periodic maintenance and the use of KS-certified products.

• Fire Protection Technology
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• s.54
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• pp.10-13
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• 2013

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2001.11a
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• pp.140-145
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• 2001

In order to apply for silane crosslinking process to PTC products, especially. self-regulating heater, silane crosslinked samples were compared with radiation crosslinked sample in terms of PTC characteristic and PTC stability. Silane crosslinked samples have lower PTC intensity than radiation crosslinked sample. It can be explained that multiple networks of silane crosslink restrict the movement of molecules in the composite as the sample is heating. As a result of heat cycles at $140^{\circ}C$, the changes of volume resistivity and PTC intensity for radiation crosslinked sample were higher than those of silane crosslinked samples. Whereas, in the case of heat cycles at $85^{\circ}C$, which is limiting temperature for self-regulating heater, both silane and radiation crosslinked samples show stable results without pronounce changes of resistivity up to five cycles.