Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

This note describes experiments carried out in a 132 kV transmission cable tunnel to examine the problem of detection of fires in cable insulating oil. Fires of various surface areas were used, and measurements of smoke density and air temperature rise made up to a distance of 115 m (377 ft) from the fire, with and without the ventilating air current flowing. The results enable the response times of heat and smoke detectors to be compared for a range of conditions, and indicate how systems using the two methods of detection can be designed to have an equivalent performance.