Safety First with Flame Rated Plastic Enclosures

Safety First with Flame Rated Plastic Enclosures

There was an incident that a one-year-old black lab found a cord and started chewing it. Actually, this dog can just chew anything as long as it has a cord on it. Once the owner gets near the area, the pet waits until the owner fell into sleep. However, eventually this chewing habit of the dog can place the pet into very dangerous scenarios. If the dog decides on chewing the power cord on the space heater, it can be dangerous even fatal to him. If the chords are just dangling all around, it is the owner’s responsibility to keep the chords away from the dog. This has got you thinking, what should be the safety precautions the owner should have to keep the dog safe?

Today, almost every equipment come with its safety guideline. Such as “don’t use the hair dryer in or near the bath tub.” It can be as simple as “Keep toys with small pieces away from children under the age of 3.” And for some packaging, “contents under pressure; do not puncture.”

With this in mind, the enclosure manufacturing companies should put safety first by making molds for the enclosures using a UL certified material. The majority of the enclosures should meet the UL’s best flame rating of 94-5VA for its standards. These specific ratings should make sure that the enclosures are of quality and they should be displayed on the website of the manufacturer. In addition to this, they should only use quality and good materials so that these standards can be met. The product information is also there to provide and give the customers the proper enclosure information to help them start the designing process.

Primarily, to help in the assessment of the UL rating, the flame rating is used to help engineers determining the appropriate usage of plastic enclosures as a part of the equipment and supplies in order to give the safety guidelines for the environment in which the enclosure can be properly or safely used.

Let us dive in closely on what the flame rating is all about and how it can be identified.

The UL flame rating of UL 94 should be able to measure and determine the flammability of one plastic material. There are two different testing mechanism to help in identifying the right measurement. At the beginning, the first measures the ability of the enclosure to be able to extinguish the flame once it is ignited. The second digit helps in identifying the ignition resistance of the enclosure for them to identify electrical ignition resources. This rating is now determined basing on the set of variable factors and it can be scored accordingly. The different factors are:

• Burning rate should be identified using the measurement in number and inches/minute basing on the thickness of the material burning

•  The material should stop burning even before the flame will be able to reach a specified mark.

• The material should not burn with flaming combustion more than the set specific number of seconds.

•  The material being burned should not drip.

•  The material should not be destroyed within the area of the flame.