October 3, 2006
The Furukawa Electric Co., Ltd. and Furukawa Techno Material Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Hiratsuka-shi, Kanagawa-ken; President: Nobuyuki Nakamura; Capital: 300 million yen, 100% funded by Furukawa Electric) have jointly acquired for their fire protection product “Ichijikan-HOLD” an accreditation from the Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transportation as well as an evaluation from the Fire Protection Equipment and Safety Center of Japan. The Ichijikan-HOLD is a fire protection product for compartment penetrations applicable to various synthetic resin pipes including those for cold- and hot-water supply and their sheathing. The Ichijikan-HOLD will be released on October 2, aiming at an annual amount of sales of 350 million yen in fiscal 2007.
Background
All piping systems are required by the Building Standard Law of Japan that they should be provided with fire spread prevention measures having a predetermined performance level to achieve a fire resistive period of 1 hour maximum, when they penetrate walls and floors of fire-proof compartments of buildings.
In the conventional fire protection methods, it was a typical practice to use a combination of heat-expandable fireproof materials and fittings, or to apply heat-expandable fireproof tapes ---after cutting them suitably to fit the spot of installation--- onto the piping, followed by backfilling using mortar. These methods, however, have problems as listed below
| Problems with conventional products | Solutions by Ichijikan-HOLD | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | It is difficult, in case of densely packed piping or laid-on-floor piping, to wrap every piping one turn by using heat-expandable materials. | The structure of Ichijikan-HOLD is such that one-turn wrapping is unnecessary. |
| 2 | The fittings must be adjusted in the length. | No fittings are used, hence no length adjustment. |
| 3 | The heat-expandable fireproof tape needs fitting and cutting. | Quantity consumed per point is quantified, eliminating material cutting work and the like. |
| 4 | Cutting work at the sites can result in, depending on material quantity surveying, insufficiency of materials necessitating supplemental materials. | Because quantity consumed per point is quantified, the design quantity is always equal to the consumed quantity, eliminating needs for supplemental materials. |
| 5 | An adhesive tape is used in attaching the material to the piping, making position correction difficult. | Because no adhesive tape is used at all, position correction is easy. |
Appearance of Ichijikan-HOLD. Left: HD-S, Right: HD-L
To solve the problems listed above, we have developed Ichijikan-HOLD (patent pending) which employs a high-performance heat-expandable material to achieve easy mounting onto piping without using fittings, eliminating material cutting or one-turn wrapping around the piping.
Use of Ichijikan-HOLD is expected to realize such advantages as ease of installation work at sites, shortening of work periods, a significant reduction in material quantity surveying, and improvement in quality of work.
Features of Ichijikan-HOLD
The Ichijikan-HOLD is based on an innovative concept of “elastic heat-expandable material of unitary structure”.
1. Compliance with the Building Standard Law and the Fire Prevention Law Notification
Taking the controversial injuries caused by smoke emission into consideration, Ichijikan-HOLD has employed a new material that emits less smoke than conventional products, thereby reducing not only the smoke coming from penetrations but also the smoke emitted by the material itself. Thus, Ichijikan-HOLD has been approved as a product in compliance with the Fire Prevention Law Notification scheduled to be in force in April 2007, and has acquired an accreditation from the Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transportation as well as an evaluation from the Fire Protection Equipment and Safety Center of Japan, as listed below.
Evaluation from the Fire Protection Equipment and Safety Center of Japan: Hyo 18-035 for floor process in shared housing compartment; Hyo 18-057 for wall process; and Hyo 18-058 for hollow wall process.
Accreditation from the Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transportation: PS060WL-0298 for 1-hour fire resistive floor process; and PS060WL-0305 for wall process.
2. Use of a high-performance heat-expandable material
A high-performance heat-expandable material has been employed that expands about 10 times at the time of fire, so as to block up promptly and assuredly the interspaces made by fire-damaged piping.
3. Remarkably improved work efficiency compared with the conventional method
Mounting of Ichijikan-HOLD onto piping.
- The Ichijikan-HOLD is compact in size, uses no fittings, and permits one-touch mounting onto the piping. The length is 50 mm, the shortest among similar products.
- Even after being mounted, it slides easily permitting a straightforward position correction.
- Either length adjustment or cutting is unnecessary at the time of installation.
- After mounting Ichijikan-HOLD, installation will be completed simply by backfilling the clearance between the piping and opening by using mortar.
4. Applicability to various types of piping
The Ichijikan-HOLD is applicable to various types of piping as listed below, including resin pipes for cold- and hot-water supply, flexible electrical conduits made of synthetic resin, and stainless steel flexible pipes.
- Sheathing pipes
- Sheathing pipes, cross-linked polyethylene pipes, and polybutene pipes, with covering
- Polyethylene-covered metal pipes
- Cross-linked polyethylene pipes
- )Polybutene pipes
- )Stainless steel flexible pipes
- Polypropylene pipes
- Rigid polyvinyl-chloride pipes, where cable feed-in is permitted
- Flexible electrical conduits made of synthetic resin
- Electrical conduits made of rigid polyvinyl-chloride, where cable feed-in is permitted
5. A wide range of pipe sizes can be covered using only two types of Ichijikan-HOLD, where the applicable pipe size is 48 mm maximum.
6. Applicable to hollow wall penetrations
The Ichijikan-HOLD is applicable to hollow wall penetrations, when an opening is reinforced using a steel sheet 0.3 mm or more in thickness.
Remarks
Exhibition: The Ichijikan-HOLD will be exhibited in the 28th Infrastructural Piping Equipment & Facilities Exhibition, to be held at the Fukiage Hall of the Nagoya Trade & Industry Center, from October 5 to 7; and also in the 36th Infrastructural Piping Equipment & Facilities Exhibition, to be held at the Hamamatsu-cho Building of the Tokyo Metropolitan Industry & Trade Center, from October 18 to 19.
| Product name: | Ichijikan-HOLD |
|---|---|
| Unit of sale: | 20 sets, separately packaged in a box |
| Price: | HD-S: 17,000 yen/box HD-L: 22,000 yen/box |
| Release date: | October 2 |