We experienced this problem with a small computer fan about 30 year ago. The fan bearing would fail after a few years, the fan would stall and impedance protection allowed the fan to sit and cook for months. Eventually the insulation failed and allowed an arc. The plastic at this point had lost its flame retardancy due to the heat. Fire resulted.
Bob Johnson ITE Safety From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2003 9:32 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Fire Retardants If a plastic containing a fire retardant is subjected to high heat (for example, due to a overheated component) for an extended period of time (many hours or several days), is it possible that the fire retardant in the plastic will outgas sufficiently to decrease the flame rating of the plastic in the heated area? Richard Woods Sensormatic Electronics Tyco International This message is from the IEEE EMC Society Product Safety Technical Committee emc-pstc discussion list. Visit our web site at: http://www.ewh.ieee.org/soc/emcs/pstc/ To cancel your subscription, send mail to: [email protected] with the single line: unsubscribe emc-pstc For help, send mail to the list administrators: Ron Pickard: [email protected] Dave Heald: [email protected] For policy questions, send mail to: Richard Nute: [email protected] Jim Bacher: [email protected] Archive is being moved, we will announce when it is back on-line. All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc
