CPR Fire Test Competence Center

In July 2017 the CPR (European Construction Products Regulation) came into force. It established the basic requirements and the harmonised essential characteristics that all products must guarantee to be permanently installed in civil engineering works (e.g. homes, industrial and commercial buildings, offices, airports, hospitals, schools, subways, etc.). Basically, this Regulation has considerably tightened the rules concerning the fire tests to which the cables must be subjected, and these tests must necessarily be carried out externally at the laboratories of a qualified certifying body.

Nowadays we have in LAPP Group several products under this certification and we have experienced that the new procedures are time-consuming and expensive. Looking to the opportunity CTFs (Customer Testing Facilities) offered by some qualified certifying bodies, we started in April 2022 the study and the design of a new building within the production plant of LAPP Camuna Cavi (Italy) dedicated entirely to the laboratories.

A space of approximately 500 m², divided over 2 floors, where approximately 200 are totally dedicated to the tests required by the CPR, thanks to the installation of a combustion chamber according to the EN 50399 standard and all the other reaction to fire tests involved in the regulation.

The new laboratory, recognised for the CTFs program by an official certifying body (in our case VDE and IMQ), allow us to conduct in house all the test required for the CPR approval and significantly shorten the entire certification process having an economical benefit. The new Fire Test Competence Center is ready and fully operational since December 2023 and it will let us become a specialised competence center for the entire LAPP Group.