How a Type 90 Safety Cabinet in accordance with DIN EN 14470-1 provides added safety

Related Vendors

DÜPERTHAL Sicherheitstechnik GmbH & Co. KG

Glatt Ingenieurtechnik GmbH

TRM Filter d.o.o.

Fire Scenarios

In a case of emergency, however, every minute counts and just ten minutes resistance to fire seem very great a risk, especially when considering industrial fire scenarios:

• Start of a fire: The fire alarm is activated and the workforce begin to escape.

• 5-10 minutes of fire: The workforce are outside the danger zone and the fire service is on their way to the source of the fire.

• 10-15 minutes of fire: The fire service is beginning to extinguish the on-site fire. At this point, the safety function of ’ten-minute cabinets’ are beginning to fail already.

• 15-90 minutes of fire: In order prevent an inferno, the fire must be extinguished in that time. Safety cabinets able to withstand the flames that long may provide some crucial extra minutes.

In Europe, the standardised fire chamber test performed by a material test institutes (MPA) warrants that Type 90 safety cabinets survive 90 minutes of fire pursuant in accordance with DIN EN 14470-1.

Giving the Safety Cabinet Hell

In order to exactly find out and document what actually happens to the cabinet and everything inside it in a fire, safety cabinet manufacturer Düperthal exposed one of their Type 90-series safety cabinets to a fire endurance test. The safety cabinet was locked in a special fire container normally used to train fire fighters for their emergency work. And then it was given hell. By means of accelerants, excessive temperatures can be generated in the fire container in less than no time. The fire was fed fuel several times in order to keep it burning at the high temperature for all of the specified 90 minutes.

Even the fire service team were sceptical at first as to whether and how well the safety cabinet and its test content would survive this ordeal. But 90 minutes later the fire was extinguished and when the cabinet was opened there was an unambiguous result: The safety cabinet, though worn on the outside, had not taken any damage on the inside — and what’s more, neither had the objects in it.

Where this trial used a test inventory of things, dangerous flammable substances would be inside the cabinet. Thus, every minute counts that the cabinet keeps providing its safety function in a case of fire.

Through its proven fire resistance, a Type 90 Safety Cabinet expands the time available for extinguishing a fire, thereby efficiently reducing the risks for humans, the environment and equipment.

* The author is Marketing Manager at Düperthal Sicherheitstechnik Gmbh & Co. KG in Karlstein, Germany.

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