Practice of Using Fire-safety Sleeve for Free Flow Conduits of the Engineering Systems Made of Polymer Materials
To exclude the possibility of fire spreading through the utility lines of buildings and structures, various technical means are used that meet the normative established characteristics. As part of the intersection nodes of the enclosing building structures of sewage and water disposal systems, fire-safety sleeves are used, which ensure the limit of fire spreading to adjacent rooms through the node crossed by the pipeline. The use of fire-safety sleeves for these utility lines is only possible for free flow conduits of the systems made of polymer materials (polypropylene, polyethylene, polyvinyl chloride, etc.). For different types of the pipelines, other technical solutions are used to limit the spread of fire. The principle of fire-safety sleeves operation is to completely cover the intersecting mounting opening of the building structure in the shortest possible time and prevent the transfer of flame and combustion products to adjacent rooms. The efficiency of the operation of fire-safety sleeve and the preservation of its fire-technical characteristics for a given time depends on the following factors: correct installation carried out in accordance with the established instructions; design of fire-safety sleeves; physical and chemical properties of the material used for thermally expanding sleeve liner; material of a polymer pipeline. Statistics of the conducted tests show that the maximum fire resistance limits are typical for intersection nodes with polymer pipelines having diameter from 32 to 110 mm. For the pipelines with a diameter of 160 mm and more, it is very difficult to achieve similar fire-technical characteristics due to the large area of the overlapping mounting openings and the increased inertia of a fire-safety sleeve actuation.