Construction Products Regulation (CPR) No. 305/2011 of the European Council is the new regulations and labeling standards to replace the CPD No. 89/106/EEC for the construction of buildings across Europe. The new regulation has been enforced since 1st July 2017 and covers all products used in the permanently-installed buildings such as windows, doors, building cladding, and cables.

The basic requirements are still the same as in the replaced CPD. The new requirements have been listed as such:

1. Mechanical resistance and stability
2. Safety in case of fire
3. Hygiene, health and the environment
4. Protection Safety and accessibility in use
5. Against noise
6. Energy economy and heat retention
7. Sustainable use of natural resources

According to new regulation of “Safety in case of fire”, it requires vendor to have the classification and label of flame performance on cable jacketing and box. The example of label is as the figure below, the label has to mention classification levels of cables which can be categorized into 7 classes - Aca, B1ca, B2ca, Cca, Dca, Eca and Fca - based on flame spread/propagation and heat release. Also, the classification has to follow by 3 additional classifications of smoke rating, droplets rating and acidity rating as well.

Pic: Classification of CPR of cables

CIERRA^TM - FR is a Flame Retardant additive that provides a combination of smoke suppression and flame retardant within one produce. This is accomplished by removing or reducing heat, fuel oxygen or smoke generation via different mechanism to attack a fire – Char formation/Condensation phase (reduces/eliminates the fuel by a char cover), Release water (reduces the temperature in the combustion zone, excludes oxygen and combines with soot particles to reduce smoke) and Endothermic reaction (removes heat energy from the combustion process).
We have team who will work closely with our customers to develop effective solutions to meet various requirements and allows our customers centered approach to support existing products and partnering on new applications or solving formulation challenges.

References

Photo: Steve Johnson on Unsplash
European Commission, “Construction Products Regulation (CPR)” https://ec.europa.eu/growth/sectors/construction/product-regulation_en
Wikipedia, “Regulation (EU) No. 305/2011”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_(EU)_No._305/2011