A Note on an Oxygen Index Test on Electric Cables

An oxygen index test was conducted on thirteen different electric cable samples, to determine the limiting oxygen index (i.e., LOI) of each cable composite, its sheath and its insulated wire. A statistical comparative analysis for the data pairs has shown that the LOI of the cable composite correlated sig nificantly well with that of its sheath material whereas it hardly had any sig nificant correlations with that of its insulated wire. This implies that the LOI of a cable composite may be an alternative to that of its sheath material in some cases, though it should be considered that the former tends to be a little higher than the latter. Adoption of the oxygen index test on electric cable com posites instead of that on the sheath coverings could only have merit in simplification and convenience of the sample preparation for the test.