Arsenal Selects Dow Electrical & Telecommunications Cable Compound for Low Voltage HFFR applications

Dow Electrical and Telecommunications (Dow E&T), a business unit of The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE: DOW) announced that Arsenal, a Russian manufacturer of specialist power and telecommunications cables, has qualified Dow DFDA-1648 NT compounds for jacketing and insulation of low voltage (LV) halogen-free flame retardant (HFFR) cables for building wire, industrial and marine applications.

Arsenal manufactures cables for a diverse range of highly demanding power and telecommunications applications, including subways, chemical plants, marine installations, public places and the nuclear power sector. The company needed to find a solution that met customers’ exacting needs for an optimal balance between high flame retardancy and processability.

Arsenal selected DFDA-1648 NT halogen-free, flame retardant jacketing and insulation compound from Dow E&T to produce LV HFFR power cables, fire alarm cables and other special cables used in multi—purpose public buildings requiring exceptional flame retardant performance.  The cables produced by Arsenal using Dow materials successfully met the stringent requirements of the Russian national standard GOST R 53315-2009 for fire safety requirements. 

“The team from Dow E&T provided a solution that met our customers’ expectations,” said Gennady Urazov, Deputy Director General at Arsenal. “The Dow E&T compound successfully completed all the tests, demonstrating good flame retardancy and easy processing on commercial PVC/PE extruders. We can move forward with confidence to offer this solution to our customers in Russia.”

“Whereas in many cases customers have to use special screw design or even special extruders in order to achieve acceptable line speeds, with DFDA-1648 NT from Dow E&T this was not necessary,” confirmed Mikhail Bogdanov, Technical Support and Development Manager for Dow E&T in Russia. “We are delighted that Arsenal has selected the compound for the manufacture of special cables in Russia and look forward to working closely with them to provide a performance solution to customers,” he added.

Key benefits of DFDA-1648 NT include:
•    Ease of extrusion, without the need for special screws
•    Good surface appearance
•    Good crack resistance on the majority of armored cables
•    Excellent combustion properties (lower smoke, lower acidity)
•    Excellent electricals:
­    High volume resistivity
­    Low dielectric constant and dissipation factor
•    Competitive mechanical properties (tensile elongation, tear strength, abrasion resistance)