UL announced that it officially opened a cables fire safety and performance laboratory.
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The facility, located in the Industrial City of Abu Dhabi (ICAD) allows manufacturers, brands and suppliers of electrical and optical cables and busways from throughout the Middle East to access a local laboratory for fire safety.
UL has officially opened a cables fire safety and performance laboratory in the Industrial City of Abu Dhabi (ICAD). The facility allows manufacturers, brands and suppliers of electrical and optical cables and busways from throughout the Middle East to access a local laboratory for fire safety.
Staffed with UL's industry leading experts and designed to test flame retardant and fire resistant cables, fire alarm cables, building wires with fire resistance ratings, fiber optic component cables with fire resistance ratings and busways, the new fire safety laboratory will accommodate tests to multiple standards for flame retardant and fire resistance properties.
When cables burn, they may produce significant volumes of heat, smoke, toxic or corrosive fumes, and falling flaming materials, known as burning droplets.
UL's new laboratory provides tests to measure how a cable reacts when exposed to fire and to assess acid gas emission and smoke generation. In addition, UL now has the capability to evaluate cables' circuit integrity during a fire. This includes tests for fire alone, fire with water, fire with mechanical shock, and fire with both mechanical shock and water to demonstrate various real life scenarios.
"Driven by growing customer expectations and UL's deep understanding of wire and cable industry needs and requirements, the opening of our location here in Abu Dhabi will further support manufacturers, especially those here in the region, and provide convenience and capability throughout every step of the go to market process," said Hamid Syed, vice president and general manager for UL in the Middle East.
"With this in mind, the laboratory was developed to provide key customer benefits including faster turnaround times, logistics and shipping costs reductions, and overall product safety."
The Middle East has seen increased regulation around the fire safety of cables. The new laboratory is prepared to help meet these regulations including local civil defense code requirements to comply to fire resistance for cables and the Civil Defense Certificate of Compliance (CoC) for cables requiring test reports and certificates. The facility is also equipped to address compliance to consultant specifications for construction projects in the Middle East and to meet export requirements to the EU, U.K., U.S. and Africa.
"A local presence with global expertise will help reduce logistics and shipping costs to the EU and Asia markets. And most importantly, the new laboratory will help drive overall safety as we are able to test locally to meet more stringent regulations for fire resistant cables in our region," Syed said. ■
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