A specific objective of the project is to create a technical background for EXAP (extended application) for reaction to fire testing and classification of cables in order to support the implementation of CE-marking of cables under the CPD.

EXAP procedures must be developed on how to extrapolation and interpolation data between construction variations of similar products (product families) in order to minimise the testing burden for classification of ranges of products. The project work is split between Europacable and an RTD (Research, Technology and Development) group led by SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden. SP have a wide experience of testing cables to the FIPEC (Fire Performance of Electric Cables) protocols required by the Commission Decision and were heavily involved in the development of the Classes of reaction-to-fire performance for electric cables on behalf of the Commission. Other members of the RTD group are ISSeP of Belgium who have previous cable testing experience as part of the FIPEC "Fire Performance of Electric Cables – new test methods and measurement techniques" project, Interscience Communications who also have previous experience as part of the FIPEC project, LSF of Italy who have completed previous projects on cable testing and VDE of Germany who have longstanding experience in certification of cables and the necessary equipment to carry out cable tests in accordance with the Commission Decision.

A large database of large scale (EN50399) reaction to fire tests results has been established by the RTD laboratories backed by 8 Europacable test laboratories, testing a representative set of samples from product families supplied by Europacable from the European market and covering power, control, communication and optical fibre constructions. Some 120 samples have been tested and the results subject to detailed analysis.

From this analysis, specific EXAP rules for the generic product families tested have been developed which will enable classification to be obtained from the results of a limited number tests together with the use of a "safety margin". Analysis of all the CEMAC II data has shown that an erroneous classification would not occur for any of cables tested within the project through the use of the proposed EXAP rules.

The project commenced in 2007 and the final report will be published in autumn 2009 when further information will be made available.