ALUMINIUM CABLE Applications

Aluminum cables are becoming more commonly used in the market and just like any service penetration they have to be properly fire rated in accordance to AS 1530.4.
Trafalgar has a range of approved systems to offer for all commonly used service penetrations.

Traditionally, copper core cables are used in the electrical and power industries however aluminum cables are becoming increasingly popular across the Australian building industry, specifically due to the cost of these when compared to the rising costs of copper core cables. However, aluminum cables have a much lower melting point of 660 degrees Celsius, compared with copper at 1080 degrees Celsius, which means that under fire conditions the cables react very differently.

This means that for cable service penetration systems through fire rated barriers, we cannot directly apply previous cable testing from copper cables to aluminum cables because they will yield very different results. To address this, the National Construction Code (NCC) and AS1530.4 require that AL core cables should be tested separately to determine their performance as a penetration system.

Trafalgar Fire is committed to innovation within the passive fire industry and has been developing new passive fire systems specifically designed to maintain the Fire Resistance Level (FRL) of AL core cable penetrations through a range of common fire rated barriers. The Trafalgar products in this datasheet have been fire tested to AS1530.4-2014 as penetration systems with aluminum cable services, and are fully compliant under the National Construct Code (NCC).