1. Why cable and fibre manufacturing HVAC is its own engineering discipline
Cable, wire, conductor and fibre-optic manufacturing is one of the most chemically and thermally varied process environments in Australian industry, and the ductwork that serves it is anything but generic. Inside a single integrated cable plant — the Olex Cables works at Tottenham in Melbourne’s west, now part of Nexans, or the Prysmian Group Australia high-voltage facility at Liverpool in south-western Sydney — you move within a few hundred metres from copper rod-breakdown drawing flooded with oil-mist lubricant, to bright-anneal furnaces running a hydrogen-bearing reducing atmosphere, to PVC extruders liberating hydrogen chloride at the die head, to an XLPE continuous-vulcanisation line venting methane from peroxide cure, to a degassing oven holding XLPE cores for days, to a low-smoke zero-halogen sheathing line, and to combustible polymer dust drifting off compounding and masterbatch. A fibre-optic plant adds a 2000 °C draw-tower furnace blanketed with helium and argon and a UV-cure coating station generating ozone. Each of these process zones has a distinct contaminant, a distinct exposure standard, a distinct fire or explosion dimension, and a distinct duct material requirement. HVAC ductwork here is a process-engineering problem, not a commodity purchase.
This guide is written from Box Hill North in Victoria, for Australian cable and fibre manufacturers and the mechanical contractors who build and maintain their extraction systems. The Australian cable industry has deep local heritage. Olex Cables traces its origins back over a century in Melbourne and remains a cornerstone of Australian cable manufacturing at Tottenham, now under the Nexans group as Nexans Olex. Prysmian Group Australia operates major manufacturing and engineering capability at Liverpool NSW with a further presence at Dee Why, covering low-voltage, medium-voltage and high-voltage cable including XLPE-insulated power cable. Tycab Australia manufactures automotive, building and flexible cable at Coburg VIC. Advance Cables, Electra Cables, TPC Cables, Australian Cable Industries, the historic BICC operations, Garland Cables, Bambach Wires & Cables and Crystal Cable round out a diverse field of building-wire, flexible-cord, specialty and high-end audio cable makers. On the fibre side, Corning Australia, Prysmian fibre and Madison cover optical-fibre and fibre-cable manufacture and distribution. Overhead-conductor and powerline products feed Aurora and the broader electricity-network supply chain. Copper rod is fed from refineries into the rod-breakdown lines; aluminium rod feeds the aluminium-conductor and overhead-line products.
Across this entire sector the ductwork has to survive five simultaneous demands. Corrosion resistance to acid and solvent fume — hydrogen chloride from PVC, organic acids from LSZH, acetophenone from XLPE cure, VOC from solvent marking ink. Resistance to condensing oil mist that runs back along the duct from every drawing and stranding line. High-temperature service from annealing furnaces, XLPE cross-linking zones and the fibre draw-tower furnace. Explosion protection where methane from XLPE cure (lower explosive limit 5%) and combustible polymer or aluminium dust create gas and dust hazardous areas under AS/NZS 60079. And asphyxiation control wherever nitrogen, helium or argon is used — on the CV line, the degassing oven, the bright-anneal furnace and the fibre draw tower — holding the breathing-air envelope at 19.5–23.5% oxygen. Each is manageable alone. Together they explain why a fabricator who treats a cable plant as just another industrial sheet-metal job loses money on the first project and is not invited back for the second.
This guide walks every major process zone of a cable, wire, conductor and fibre plant and explains what changes about the ductwork at each. We start with the Australian regulatory stack, then move process by process from rod-breakdown drawing through to fibre draw tower, then cover hazardous-area classification, combustible dust, worker-exposure dilution design, the SBKJ machine line that gives an Australian fabricator the production envelope to serve this market, commissioning and measurement and verification, energy and sustainability, the industry and standards landscape, and competitive positioning. Specific numbers, clauses and equipment throughout; no filler.
2. The Australian regulatory stack — AS 1668, AS 4254, AS/NZS 60079, AS 1375, AS 3957, AS 1940 and the supporting codes
Cable and fibre manufacturing HVAC in Australia sits at the intersection of building-code ventilation compliance, occupational-health exposure compliance, hazardous-area electrical compliance for both gas and dust, industrial-furnace safety, flammable-liquid storage and the cable product standards that frame the whole industry. Each is enforceable, and ignoring any one of them invites a notice from SafeWork Australia, the state EPA, or an insurer’s risk engineer. The stack below is the working set of documents an Australian cable-plant duct designer keeps on the desk.
2.1 AS 1668.1 and AS 1668.2 — fire mode and mechanical ventilation
AS 1668.1 covers the fire aspects of air-handling systems — fire and smoke dampers, fire-mode fan operation, and the control of air movement to manage smoke during a fire. In a cable plant, where the fire load includes polymer insulation, oil lubricant and solvent ink, the AS 1668.1 fire-mode strategy interacts with every extraction system that penetrates a fire compartment. AS 1668.2 is the mechanical-ventilation and required-outdoor-air standard, and it is the workhorse document. It sets the dilution-ventilation and make-up-air requirements, and it ties the ventilation design back to the workplace exposure standards (WES) for the contaminants present. In a cable plant the local exhaust ventilation (LEV) at each source — the drawing-machine enclosure, the extruder die head, the CV-line vent, the degassing oven, the draw-tower coating station — carries the bulk of the contaminant, and AS 1668.2 dilution provides the background control that keeps residual escaped contaminant below the WES across the breathing zone. Critically, every cubic metre extracted must be replaced by tempered, filtered make-up air, keeping the process halls at controlled pressure so methane, solvent vapour and inert gas do not migrate into occupied offices and laboratories.
2.2 AS/NZS 4254.1 and .2 — sheet-metal and flexible duct construction
AS/NZS 4254.1 (sheet metal) and AS/NZS 4254.2 (flexible) govern duct construction across the low-pressure (up to 500 Pa), medium-pressure (up to 1000 Pa) and high-pressure (up to 2500 Pa) ranges. Most cable-plant supply air, general extract, oil-mist LEV and polymer-fume LEV sit inside AS 4254 ranges. The high-temperature annealing-furnace riser, the XLPE cross-linking-zone heat extraction and the fibre draw-tower furnace riser run beyond AS 4254 in their hot sections and require purpose-engineered construction in high-temperature stainless; AS 4254 picks up again on the cool side downstream of the cooling and dilution zone. AS 4254 also sets the gauge-versus-pressure-versus-size construction tables that the SBKJ forming lines are configured to produce.
2.3 AS/NZS 60079.10.1 — gas hazardous areas, the XLPE methane standard
AS/NZS 60079.10.1 is the hazardous-area-classification standard for explosive gas atmospheres, and in a cable plant it is triggered by the XLPE continuous-vulcanisation line. When dicumyl peroxide decomposes during cross-linking it releases methane, which has a lower explosive limit of 5% by volume in air. The curing-tube interior, the degassing-oven interior, and the immediate vicinity of CV-line seal glands and methane vent points are classified as gas hazardous areas. The classification drives Ex-rated electrical equipment for fans, motors, heaters, instrumentation and lighting in and near those zones; conductive, continuously-bonded ductwork; continuous LEL (lower explosive limit) monitoring with alarm and trip set well below 25% LEL; and a vent riser that discharges methane safely above roof level. The same standard governs the flammable-solvent envelopes — the solvent-based printing and conductor-marking inks create local Zone 1/2 vapour areas around the marking station and the ink store.
2.4 AS/NZS 60079.10.2 — dust hazardous areas
AS/NZS 60079.10.2 classifies combustible-dust atmospheres. In a cable plant the sources are the compounding, masterbatch, granulation and pellet-conveying circuits that handle PVC and polyethylene powder, and — in an aluminium-conductor plant — the fine aluminium dust from dry drawing and machining. The interior of a dust-conveying duct above settling velocity is Zone 20 (continuous), the immediate area around an open transfer point is Zone 21 (occasional), and the general material-handling room is Zone 22 (unlikely, short duration). The classification drives conductive bonded and earthed ductwork (below 1 ohm to ground at every section), Ex-rated equipment, and the deflagration-protection chain — explosion-isolation valves, deflagration venting and inerting — between the dust collector and the inbound duct main.
2.5 AS 1375 — the SAA Industrial Furnaces Code
AS 1375 governs the safe operation of fuel-fired and controlled-atmosphere industrial furnaces, and it is the controlling standard for the annealing furnaces in a cable plant. Bright-annealing of copper conductor runs under a reducing or inert atmosphere — steam, nitrogen, or a nitrogen/hydrogen reducing mix — to prevent oxidation. AS 1375 sets the combustion-safety, purge-before-light, flame-supervision and explosion-relief requirements, and where hydrogen is present (hydrogen LEL 4%) it drives the LEL monitoring and the purge-cycle interlocks on the furnace and its exhaust. The furnace exhaust riser, carrying spent reducing atmosphere plus oil burn-off smoke plus sensible heat, is engineered under AS 1375 for the hot section and AS 4254 for the cool downstream section.
2.6 AS 3957 — dust hazard areas
AS 3957 is the Australian standard for the classification of dust hazard areas and complements AS/NZS 60079.10.2. For a cable-plant duct designer it forces the explicit questions at every dust-collection point: what is the combustible dust (PVC powder, polyethylene powder, the mineral-and-polymer dust of LSZH compounding, or reactive aluminium fines), what is its deflagration index Kst, what is its minimum ignition energy, and what is the engineered deflagration-protection chain between the collector and the inbound duct? Polyethylene and PVC dusts are combustible organic dusts; aluminium fines are a reactive metal dust with a high Kst demanding wet-bath or inerted collection. The answer drives collector selection, isolation-valve placement and the bonding-and-grounding of every metre of the dust-laden circuit.
2.7 AS 1530.4 — fire-resistance of building elements
AS 1530.4 covers fire-resistance testing including fire-rated ductwork penetrations through fire compartments. In a cable plant this matters at every wall and floor penetration between a process hall (with its polymer, oil and solvent fire load, and its methane and dust hazardous areas) and adjacent offices, laboratories, electrical rooms and evacuation routes. The penetration must achieve the required fire-resistance level, typically a 250 °C/2 hour-rated duct riser with fire dampers to AS 1682, in a wall or floor assembly meeting the building’s NCC-approved FRL.
2.8 AS 1940 — flammable and combustible liquids
AS 1940 governs the storage and handling of flammable and combustible liquids. A cable plant triggers it at the drawing-lubricant bulk store (soluble-oil emulsion and oil concentrate), the solvent-based printing and conductor-marking ink store, and any solvent cleaning stations. Each requires bunded containment, segregated storage, a dedicated LEV branch where vapour is generated, and AS/NZS 60079 zoning around the immediate handling area. The drawing-lubricant store interacts directly with the oil-mist LEV because the recovered oil from the mist collector drains back to this system.
2.9 Supporting standards — AS/NZS 2243.8, AS 4024, AS/NZS 3000, AS/NZS 1715/1716, AS/NZS 1125/3808
AS/NZS 2243.8 covers laboratory fume cupboards — relevant to the cable plant’s materials-testing and QC laboratories where insulation samples, compounds and failure specimens are handled. AS 4024 is the machinery-safety standard governing guarding and safe access on the duct system and the process machinery. AS/NZS 3000 (the Wiring Rules) governs the electrical installation of the whole facility including the Ex-rated circuits feeding hazardous-area fans and instrumentation. AS/NZS 1715 and AS/NZS 1716 govern the selection, use and performance of respiratory protective equipment — the powered air-purifying respirators and full-face respirators used for powder handling, solvent work and any entry into a fume-laden space. And AS/NZS 1125 (conductors in insulated electric cables and flexible cords) and AS/NZS 3808 (insulating and sheathing materials) are the cable product standards that frame what the plant actually makes — the duct designer references them to understand the polymer chemistries (PVC, XLPE, EPR, LSZH) that drive the fume loads.
2.10 NCC Section J, ASHRAE 62.1, ISO 9001/14001/45001 and the NFPA cross-references
NCC Section J sets the energy-efficiency requirements for the building services including the HVAC plant — fan efficiency, duct insulation, and the energy budget that interacts with the large heat-extraction loads of a cable plant. ASHRAE 62.1 is the international ventilation-for-acceptable-indoor-air-quality reference that Australian designers cross-check against AS 1668.2 for the occupied-zone ventilation rates. ISO 9001 (quality), ISO 14001 (environment) and ISO 45001 (occupational health and safety) are the management-system standards under which most Australian cable manufacturers operate, and the ducted extraction and its maintenance records form part of the ISO 45001 and ISO 14001 evidence base. Where Australian standards are silent on specific deflagration-protection hardware, designers cross-reference NFPA 68 (deflagration venting) and NFPA 69 (explosion prevention by inerting and suppression) for the combustible-dust and methane systems — the same cross-reference pattern Australian industry uses across combustible-dust engineering.
3. Wire drawing — oil-mist and soap-lubricant aerosol LEV
Wire drawing is the front of the cable plant and the largest single source of airborne contamination by volume. Copper rod (fed from refineries at around 8 mm) and aluminium rod are pulled through a sequence of progressively smaller tungsten-carbide or diamond dies on rod-breakdown, intermediate and fine-wire drawing machines, reducing the cross-section step by step until the wire reaches its target gauge. The dies are flooded with drawing lubricant to reduce friction, carry away the substantial frictional heat and protect the die and wire surface. There are two lubrication regimes, and they produce different airborne loads. Wet drawing uses a soluble-oil emulsion (a water-based oil emulsion) flooded over the dies and recirculated; the high surface speed and the heat atomise the emulsion into a fine oil mist and water aerosol. Dry drawing uses a dry soap-lubricant powder through which the wire passes; this generates fine soap-lubricant dust as well as fine metallic particulate from the wire surface.
The exposure standards set the targets. The SafeWork Australia workplace exposure standard for oil mist (refined mineral oil) is 5 mg/m³ (time-weighted average). Copper fume is 0.2 mg/m³ and copper dust is 1 mg/m³; aluminium (metal dust) is 1 mg/m³. Oil mist is not only an inhalation hazard — it is a fire load, a slip hazard on floors, and a fouling agent on every surface it settles on, including the duct interior. The control strategy is enclosure plus high-efficiency mist collection. Each drawing machine is fitted with a close-fitting canopy or, increasingly, a full acoustic-and-mist enclosure, and the air is drawn off through a multi-stage mist eliminator — a mechanical coalescing collector (impaction and centrifugal stages) or an electrostatic precipitator-type oil-mist collector — that captures the mist, coalesces it back to liquid, drains the recovered oil to the lubricant system, and discharges cleaned air. Capture velocity at the enclosure openings runs 0.5–1.0 m/s.
The duct between the enclosure and the collector is where generic fabrication fails. Oil mist condenses on the duct wall and runs back as liquid; the duct must therefore be 304 or 316L stainless, pitched to a low-point drain at the collector, and run at a moderate transport velocity (8–12 m/s) sufficient to carry the aerosol without excessive pressure drop. Galvanised duct in an oil-mist stream accumulates a flammable oily film on the zinc, becomes a cleaning liability, and over time the trapped moisture in the emulsion attacks the zinc. Round spiral duct is preferred over rectangular because there are no flat panels or corners for oil to pool in. The bulk drawing-lubricant store and the recovered-oil return are AS 1940 flammable/combustible-liquid systems with bunding and dedicated ventilation. Olex Cables at Tottenham VIC, Nexans Olex and the rod-breakdown and fine-drawing lines at every Australian cable plant — Tycab at Coburg, the building-wire makers, the overhead-conductor lines — run oil-mist LEV of this form. For aluminium drawing, the fine aluminium dust from dry drawing adds a reactive combustible-dust circuit alongside the oil-mist circuit, addressed in Section 11.
4. Annealing — resistance, induction and continuous furnace exhaust
Drawing work-hardens the metal; annealing restores ductility. Copper and aluminium conductor is annealed either in-line (resistance annealing, where the moving wire is heated by passing current through it between contact wheels, or induction annealing) or in batch and continuous furnaces. The defining feature for HVAC is the atmosphere: bright-annealing of copper is done under a reducing or inert atmosphere — steam, nitrogen, or a nitrogen/hydrogen reducing gas mixture — to prevent the hot copper oxidising and to keep the conductor bright. This is why the annealing furnace sits squarely under AS 1375, the SAA Industrial Furnaces Code, which governs combustion safety, purge-before-light sequences, flame supervision and explosion relief, and which drives LEL monitoring wherever hydrogen is in the atmosphere (hydrogen LEL 4% in air).
The annealing exhaust has three components, and the duct design handles each. First, sensible heat — the furnace shell and, more importantly, the hot conductor leaving the furnace radiate and convect a large heat load that must be extracted to keep the workshop tolerable and protect downstream equipment. Second, oil burn-off smoke — any drawing lubricant carried over on the conductor surface flashes off as the conductor heats, producing an oily smoke that must be captured by a hood at the furnace exit and ducted away. Third, the spent furnace atmosphere — the reducing or inert gas leaving the furnace, handled under AS 1375 with LEL monitoring where hydrogen is present and with attention to carbon monoxide (WES 30 ppm) from any incomplete burn-off and carbon dioxide (WES 5000 ppm). Because nitrogen and steam can displace oxygen locally, the breathing-air envelope around the furnace is held at 19.5–23.5% oxygen.
The high-temperature section of the exhaust riser — immediately above the furnace and the burn-off hood — is fabricated in 309/310S high-temperature stainless for the first several metres, transitioning to 316L stainless downstream of the cooling and dilution zone where the oil-laden condensate can form. Engineered expansion joints accommodate the thermal growth of the hot riser. Where in-line resistance or induction annealing is integrated into a drawing or stranding line, the anneal burn-off hood and the line oil-mist enclosure are designed as one corrosion-resistant collection system so the oily smoke and the oil mist are handled together. The copper bright-anneal reducing atmosphere is the controlling hazard at copper plants such as Olex at Tottenham and Prysmian at Liverpool; aluminium-conductor annealing follows the same AS 1375 framework with its own atmosphere control.
5. Stranding and bunching — oil mist and mechanical contaminant
Stranding and bunching combine many individual wires into a single conductor — bunching twists wires together into a flexible cord conductor, while stranding lays wires in defined concentric or compacted layers for power-cable conductors, often over a central core. Rigid-frame stranders, tubular stranders, drum twisters, planetary and rosette machines all do variants of this. From an HVAC standpoint, stranding and bunching are lower-emission processes than drawing or extrusion, but they are not zero. The wire carries a film of residual drawing lubricant, and the high rotational speed of the bunching and stranding bows throws off a fine oil mist and aerosol. Compacting rolls and the dies that compact stranded conductors add a little frictional heat and further oil-mist liberation.
The control is a canopy or partial enclosure over the stranding point and the take-up, ducted to the same class of oil-mist collector used on the drawing lines. Because the emission is lower, the stranding LEV is often consolidated with the adjacent drawing-line oil-mist system rather than given a dedicated collector. The duct is 304/316L stainless for the same condensing-oil reason as the drawing lines, pitched to drain, at 8–12 m/s transport velocity. Where stranding is followed immediately by an extrusion head (a strand-and-insulate tandem line), the stranding oil-mist capture and the extrusion fume capture are designed as a coordinated system so the streams — oil mist from stranding, polymer fume from the extruder — are not cross-contaminated in a way that fouls the mist-recovery or the fume-scrubber. The lubricant-laden mist must not be allowed to load an acid-gas scrubber, and the acid fume must not be allowed to contaminate the recovered drawing oil; this is a duct-routing and collector-selection decision made at design time.
6. PVC insulation and sheathing extrusion — hydrogen chloride fume capture
PVC (polyvinyl chloride) is the workhorse insulation and sheathing material for building wire, flexible cords and general-purpose cable, and PVC extrusion is the defining corrosion-fume process of the cable plant. The PVC compound — resin plus plasticiser (commonly DEHP and other phthalates), stabiliser, filler and pigment — is fed into an extruder, melted and homogenised, and forced through a crosshead die over the moving conductor or core. The melt runs at 160–210 °C. Within the normal processing window the emission is modest, but PVC has a narrow thermal margin: at the upper end of the window, and during any stall, overheat, start-up, shutdown or purge, PVC begins thermal decomposition and liberates hydrogen chloride (HCl) gas, plasticiser vapour (DEHP and other phthalates volatilising off the hot melt) and trace residual vinyl chloride monomer (VCM).
Hydrogen chloride is the controlling hazard, and it is both a health hazard and a severe corrosion hazard. The SafeWork Australia workplace exposure standard for HCl is 5 ppm (peak limitation — a ceiling not to be exceeded at any time, reflecting HCl’s acute irritant action). In the presence of any condensed moisture, HCl forms hydrochloric acid, which attacks zinc and carbon steel aggressively. This is the single clearest reason galvanised duct must never be used on a PVC die-head LEV: the zinc sacrificial layer is consumed from the inside within months, the steel substrate perforates, the captured fume leaks back into the workshop, and the LEV fails — an expensive lesson that recurs whenever a generic fabricator value-engineers the duct material. The correct material is 316L stainless steel throughout the hood, the captured-fume main and the scrubber inlet, with continuously welded seams (not lock-and-seal) so there is no crevice for acid condensate to concentrate and pit the metal.
Capture is at the die head with a close-coupled hood at 0.5–1.0 m/s face velocity, positioned to catch the rising fume plume without disturbing the extrusion. The captured fume is ducted to a packed-tower wet scrubber that neutralises the HCl (typically with a dilute caustic scrubbing liquor) before stack discharge, satisfying both AS 1668.2 dilution and the state EPA emission licence. The plasticiser vapour contributes a visible haze and an odour and is partly captured in the scrubber and partly handled by dilution. The DEHP/phthalate plasticiser vapour is itself a monitored exposure. Tycab Australia at Coburg VIC, Advance Cables, Electra Cables, TPC Cables and the building-wire lines at Olex and Prysmian all run PVC extrusion and depend on corrosion-resistant HCl-fume LEV of this kind. The same extrusion line, when it switches to PVC sheathing over a finished core, runs the same fume profile at the sheathing die.
7. XLPE continuous-vulcanisation line — methane, peroxide cure and degassing
Cross-linked polyethylene (XLPE) is the insulation of choice for medium-voltage, high-voltage and extra-high-voltage power cable, and the XLPE continuous-vulcanisation (CV) line is the most hazard-dense single process in the cable plant. It is also the process that most clearly separates a cable-plant HVAC specialist from a generalist. XLPE is made by compounding polyethylene with an organic peroxide — almost universally dicumyl peroxide (DCP) — extruding the peroxide-loaded compound over the conductor, and then curing (cross-linking) it under heat and pressure inside a long curing tube. The geometry is either a catenary continuous-vulcanisation (CCV) line, where the cable follows a catenary curve through a long inclined tube, used for medium and high-voltage cable, or a vertical continuous-vulcanisation (VCV) tower, where the cable runs straight down a tall vertical tube, used for the largest HV and EHV constructions to keep the still-molten insulation concentric under gravity.
Inside the curing tube the compound is heated to 200–400 °C under pressurised nitrogen, steam or, in older lines, silicone-oil, and the peroxide decomposes to drive the cross-linking. The decomposition of dicumyl peroxide is the source of the hazard. It releases methane (CH4), acetophenone, cumyl alcohol and alpha-methylstyrene. Methane is the controlling hazard: it has a lower explosive limit of 5% by volume in air, making the curing-tube interior, the seal-gland regions where the cable enters and exits the pressurised tube, and the vent points a gas hazardous area under AS/NZS 60079.10.1. The CV-line gas-handling envelope is engineered with continuous LEL monitoring (alarm and trip well below 25% LEL), Ex-rated fans and instrumentation, conductive bonded ductwork, and a dedicated vent riser discharging methane safely above roof level. Acetophenone gives the line its characteristic sweet odour and is the marker compound captured at the vent and degassing exhaust; its workplace exposure is monitored.
Separately from the gas-vent duty, the CV line carries a large sensible-heat load — the conductor pre-heat zone, the molten cross-linking zone and the cooling zone all radiate heat into the hall — which is extracted by a heat-removal ventilation system distinct from the methane vent riser. The combination of a flammable-gas vent (small volume, high integrity, Ex-rated, continuously monitored) and a sensible-heat extraction (large volume, conventional) is characteristic of the CV line and is designed as two coordinated but separate systems. Prysmian Group Australia at Liverpool NSW and Nexans Olex run XLPE CV lines for HV power cable; the methane hazardous-area design is non-negotiable.
The degassing oven completes the XLPE process and is its own hazardous area. A freshly-cured XLPE core still holds dissolved methane and the other peroxide by-products, which would otherwise migrate and form voids or pressure under the jacket. The core is therefore held in a degassing oven — a heated soak at 60–80 °C, on bobbins, for hours to days depending on conductor size and insulation wall thickness — to drive the methane out before jacketing. The oven slowly releases methane into its enclosure, so the degassing oven is a gas hazardous area requiring continuous purge and exhaust, LEL monitoring with alarm and trip, Ex-rated heaters and fans, and a vent riser. The degassing exhaust is a continuous, around-the-clock, low-volume gas extraction whose design priority is reliability and LEL-interlock integrity over the long soak duration. Acetophenone odour at the degassing exhaust is the operational indicator of cure by-product release.
8. Rubber, EPR and silicone insulation — cure fume
Ethylene-propylene rubber (EPR and EPDM), silicone rubber and other elastomeric insulations are used for flexible cable, mining and trailing cable, medium-voltage flexible cable and high-temperature cable. They are cured (vulcanised) by heat, either in a continuous-vulcanisation line (steam tube or a CV line analogous to the XLPE line but using a peroxide or sulphur cure system) or in batch processes. The cure chemistry liberates a cure fume — the specific compounds depend on the cure system, but peroxide-cured EPR releases similar decomposition products to XLPE (including some methane and acetophenone where dicumyl peroxide is used), while sulphur-cured systems release sulphur compounds and amine accelerator fume, and silicone cure can release low-molecular-weight siloxanes and, in some systems, methanol or acetic acid depending on the crosslinker.
The HVAC treatment mirrors the XLPE and PVC approach scaled to the cure chemistry. Where a peroxide cure liberates methane, the line carries the same AS/NZS 60079.10.1 gas-hazardous-area requirement as the XLPE CV line, with LEL monitoring and Ex-rated, bonded ducting. Where the cure fume is corrosive (acetic acid from some silicone systems, sulphur compounds from sulphur cure), the captured-fume duct is 316L stainless and may terminate at a scrubber. Where the fume is principally an odour and irritant load, capture at the cure-tube exit and dilution to below the relevant WES is the control. The cure-line heat load, as with XLPE, is extracted separately. Rubber and EPR cure is a smaller part of the Australian cable industry than PVC and XLPE but is present in the flexible-cable and mining-cable product lines and follows the same corrosion-resistant, hazard-classified duct philosophy.
9. Sheathing and jacketing — PVC, PE and LSZH extrusion fume
The outer sheath (jacket) protects the cable core mechanically and environmentally, and it is applied by extrusion in the same way as primary insulation. Three sheathing chemistries dominate, each with its own fume profile. PVC sheathing runs the same hydrogen chloride, plasticiser and trace VCM fume as PVC insulation (Section 6) and demands the same 316L corrosion-resistant LEV and acid scrubber. Polyethylene (PE) sheathing — used widely for telecommunications, underground and outdoor cable — extrudes at 150–230 °C and off-gasses hydrocarbon degradation products, aldehydes and a waxy fume rather than acid gas; the LEV is corrosion-resistant stainless (the fume is hot and condensable) but does not require the heavy acid-scrubbing of PVC.
Low-smoke zero-halogen (LSZH, also written LS0H or LSHF) sheathing is the growth chemistry, mandated for tunnels, rail, data centres, hospitals and other high-occupancy or confined environments because it emits little smoke and no corrosive acid gas in a fire. LSZH compounds are a polyolefin base (polyethylene or EVA) heavily loaded with mineral flame-retardant filler — aluminium trihydroxide (ATH) or magnesium hydroxide. A common misconception is that LSZH, being halogen-free, needs no fume extraction. It does. During extrusion at 150–200 °C the polyolefin base off-gasses aldehydes, organic acids and low-molecular-weight hydrocarbons, so the die head still needs a capture hood and a corrosion-resistant (304/316L) fume main — the organic acids will corrode galvanised over time. What LSZH removes is the severe hydrogen-chloride duty of PVC, not the LEV duty itself. The practical design rule for an Australian sheathing line that runs both PVC and LSZH compounds — the norm at Tycab, Advance Cables, Olex and Prysmian — is to build the LEV in 316L stainless with a scrubber capable of both HCl neutralisation (for PVC) and organic-acid handling (for LSZH), so the same line can switch sheathing compounds without re-engineering the extraction.
10. Compounding and masterbatch — polymer and mineral dust
Many larger cable plants compound their own insulation and sheathing materials, or at least handle masterbatch (concentrated pigment and additive carriers) and dry additives, rather than buying ready-compounded pellets. Compounding blends polymer (PVC resin, polyethylene), plasticiser, stabiliser, filler, flame retardant and pigment in a high-intensity mixer and an extruder/pelletiser, and the upstream handling involves moving, weighing and feeding powders and pellets. This generates combustible polymer dust — PVC powder, polyethylene powder — and, for LSZH compound, large quantities of fine mineral flame-retardant dust (ATH, magnesium hydroxide) blended with polymer. Granulation of scrap and reclaim, and the pneumatic conveying of pellets, add further dust.
Polyethylene and PVC dusts are combustible organic dusts and are classified under AS 3957 and AS/NZS 60079.10.2. The dust-handling and dust-collection circuit is therefore a dust hazardous area (Zone 20 inside the conveying duct and collector, Zone 21/22 around transfer points). The plasticiser-wetted compound dust and the highly mineral-loaded LSZH dust have their own explosibility characteristics that the dust hazard analysis must establish — Kst, minimum ignition energy and minimum explosible concentration. The dust main is round spiral duct at 18–22 m/s transport velocity to keep the dust entrained, conductively bonded and earthed throughout (below 1 ohm to ground), with no horizontal dead legs where dust can settle and form an ignition bed. The collector is fitted with engineered deflagration venting (NFPA 68) and explosion-isolation valves (NFPA 69) between the collector and the inbound duct. Nuisance and respirable-dust control under the relevant WES protects the operators, and a HEPA polish on the collector discharge protects the wider environment. Compounding is a discrete and well-bounded dust hazard within the cable plant, and its duct circuit is engineered as a self-contained combustible-dust system.
11. Fibre-optic draw tower — high-temperature furnace and UV-coating ozone
Fibre-optic manufacturing is a different physical process from metallic cable, and its HVAC envelope reflects that. The optical fibre is drawn from a glass preform — a metre-scale rod of ultra-pure doped silica — in a tall draw tower. At the top of the tower the preform tip is melted in a high-temperature furnace: a graphite or zirconia resistance furnace running above 2000 °C, blanketed with inert gas, typically helium and argon, both to protect the graphite and to control the thermal environment of the forming fibre. The fibre is pulled from the molten tip and drawn down through the tower at high speed.
The furnace exhaust is a high-temperature, inert-gas-laden stream that must be extracted up a dedicated high-temperature riser. The controlling hazard at the furnace is oxygen displacement by the helium and argon blanket gas; the breathing-air envelope is held at 19.5–23.5% oxygen with monitoring, and the inert-gas supply and exhaust are managed so the hot riser carries the spent blanket gas safely away. Helium and argon are simple asphyxiants. The high-temperature section of the riser is high-temperature stainless. As the bare fibre descends and cools it passes through one or two coating cups that apply UV-curable acrylate primary and secondary coatings, and the coating is cured by high-intensity ultraviolet lamps. Those UV lamps generate ozone (O3) from atmospheric oxygen, and ozone is the controlling fume hazard at the coating-and-curing station.
The SafeWork Australia workplace exposure standard for ozone is 0.1 ppm — one of the lower limits in the standard, reflecting ozone’s potency as a respiratory irritant and oxidant. The UV-cure cabinet is enclosed and exhausted by a dedicated LEV branch in 316L stainless (ozone is corrosive and would attack lesser materials), discharging through an ozone-destruct catalyst or sufficient dilution to bring the discharge below the WES and satisfy AS 1668.2. Because the draw tower is tall — commonly 10–30 m — the high-temperature furnace riser at the top and the ozone-laden coating exhaust lower down are vertically separated and independently ducted, which simplifies materials selection (high-temperature stainless up top, ozone-resistant stainless at the coating station) but complicates the structural and access engineering of the duct runs. Corning Australia, Prysmian fibre and Madison cover fibre-optic and fibre-cable manufacture in Australia; the draw-tower furnace-and-ozone duct topology is specific to this part of the industry. Downstream fibre cabling — buffering, stranding fibre into loose-tube or ribbon cable, and sheathing — reverts to the polymer-extrusion fume profiles already covered.
12. Solvent printing and conductor marking — VOC capture
Cables and cores are marked for identification — phase colours, sequential metre-marking, type and rating legends — by inkjet, hot-foil, or solvent-based roller and pad printing. Solvent-based inks and the associated thinners and cleaning solvents release volatile organic compounds (VOCs) at the print head and the ink store. The VOC load is modest in volume but creates a local flammable-vapour zone (Zone 1/2 under AS/NZS 60079.10.1) around the marking station and the solvent store, and the VOCs are an inhalation exposure governed by their individual workplace exposure standards. The control is a small dedicated LEV hood at the print station capturing the solvent vapour, an AS 1940-compliant bunded and ventilated solvent store, and Ex-rated electrical equipment in the immediate vapour zone. Where water-based or UV-cured inkjet marking is used instead, the VOC load drops and a UV-cure ink adds a small ozone-and-UV consideration analogous to the fibre coating station. The marking-station LEV is typically the smallest extraction branch in the plant but must not be omitted from the hazardous-area classification.
13. Hazardous-area classification — mapping the XLPE methane and dust zones
Pulling the process sections together, the hazardous-area classification of a cable and fibre plant is a dual exercise under AS/NZS 60079.10.1 (gas) and AS/NZS 60079.10.2 (dust), supported by AS 3957 for dust and AS 1375 for the furnaces. The gas hazardous areas are driven overwhelmingly by methane from XLPE (and peroxide-cured EPR) cure, plus the solvent-marking vapour and the flammable-liquid stores. The dust hazardous areas are driven by combustible polymer and mineral dust from compounding and, in aluminium-conductor plants, by reactive aluminium fines.
The gas zoning runs as follows. The XLPE CV-line curing-tube interior, the seal-gland regions and the methane vent points are the core gas hazardous area; the degassing-oven interior is a continuous gas hazardous area for the soak duration; the immediate vicinity of CV-line and degassing vents is classified outward according to the dispersion. The solvent-marking station and ink store carry a local Zone 1 (during operation) and Zone 2 (general area) classification. The bright-anneal furnace, where hydrogen is in the reducing atmosphere, is classified and interlocked under AS 1375 with LEL monitoring. The dust zoning runs as follows. The interior of a combustible-dust conveying duct above settling velocity is Zone 20; the interior of the collector is Zone 20; the immediate area around an open powder transfer or a granulator is Zone 21; the general compounding-room floor is Zone 22. An aluminium-drawing dust circuit carries the same dust-zone structure with a more demanding deflagration-protection requirement because of aluminium’s reactivity.
The classification drives three things for the duct designer. First, electrical-equipment selection — every fan, motor, heater, sensor and light in or near a classified zone must be Ex-rated to the appropriate gas or dust group and temperature class, installed under AS/NZS 3000 and the AS/NZS 60079 installation parts. Second, ductwork construction — conductive (316L stainless), continuously bonded with conductive flange gaskets at every joint, externally bonded to the building earth grid, and earth-resistance verified below 1 ohm to ground at every section at commissioning. Third, the deflagration-protection chain — LEL monitoring and Ex equipment on the methane systems, and explosion-isolation valves, deflagration venting (NFPA 68) and inerting/suppression (NFPA 69) on the combustible-dust collectors. Every zone boundary is documented on the plant drawings, and the duct system is fabricated and installed to respect those boundaries.
14. Combustible polymer and metal dust — deflagration protection
The combustible-dust hazard in a cable plant deserves its own treatment because it is the dimension most often under-engineered. Polyethylene and PVC powders are combustible organic dusts; the fine mineral-and-polymer dust of LSZH compounding adds bulk; and aluminium fines from aluminium-conductor dry drawing and machining are a reactive metal dust. AS 3957 requires a documented dust hazard analysis (DHA) for every point of dust generation, accumulation, ignition and propagation, establishing for each combustible dust its deflagration index Kst, its minimum ignition energy, its minimum explosible concentration and its layer-ignition behaviour. Organic polymer dusts typically sit at moderate Kst values; fine aluminium dust sits at a high Kst with a low minimum ignition energy, which is why it demands the most robust protection.
The engineered controls follow the DHA. Polymer-dust collection uses a baghouse or cartridge collector with engineered deflagration venting to a safe location (NFPA 68), or, for the more energetic dusts, a suppression or inerting system (NFPA 69). Aluminium-fines collection uses wet-bath or inerted collection because aluminium reacts with water to evolve hydrogen and burns intensely, so a dry baghouse on fine aluminium without isolation and venting is an unacceptable risk. Between the collector and the inbound duct main, certified explosion-isolation valves — chemical-suppression, flap-valve or rotary-valve type depending on duct size and dust Kst — prevent a collector deflagration from propagating flame back into the duct and into the workshop. The duct itself is bonded and earthed throughout, run at transport velocity (18–22 m/s) with no settling zones, and built in conductive 316L stainless. Good housekeeping — preventing dust-layer accumulation on surfaces, which is the fuel for a secondary explosion — is part of the engineered system, supported by the LEV capturing dust at source so it never settles. For an Australian fabricator, the practical message is that the dust circuit of an aluminium-conductor or compounding plant is a specialist deflagration-protected system, distinct from the corrosion-resistant fume mains, and must be engineered as such.
15. Worker-exposure dilution design and the WES calculation
Local exhaust ventilation captures contaminant at source; dilution ventilation under AS 1668.2 handles what escapes capture, keeping the breathing-zone concentration below the workplace exposure standard. The two work together, and the dilution calculation is a core deliverable of the HVAC design. For a contaminant generated at mass rate G (in mg/s or g/s) that escapes capture, the dilution airflow Q (in m³/s) needed to hold the room concentration C below the relevant WES is given by Q = G / (C × K), where K is a mixing-efficiency factor (typically 3 to 10) that accounts for imperfect mixing and the toxicity of the contaminant — a low K (good mixing, low toxicity) needs less air, a high K (poor mixing, high toxicity) needs more.
The governing WES values for the cable and fibre plant, against which the dilution is sized, are: oil mist 5 mg/m³; hydrogen chloride 5 ppm (peak limitation, PVC decomposition); copper fume 0.2 mg/m³ and copper dust 1 mg/m³; aluminium 1 mg/m³; methane (XLPE) a simple asphyxiant, additionally controlled by its 5% lower explosive limit; acetophenone (XLPE cure by-product); DEHP and other phthalate plasticiser vapour (PVC); ozone 0.1 ppm (UV fibre coating); carbon monoxide 30 ppm and carbon dioxide 5000 ppm (furnace burn-off); and oxygen held within the 19.5–23.5% breathing envelope wherever nitrogen, helium or argon is used. For the flammable contaminants — methane and the marking solvents — the dilution is sized not on toxicity but on the lower explosive limit, conventionally to hold the concentration below 25% LEL, which for methane (LEL 5%) means below 1.25% by volume; this LEL-based criterion is almost always more demanding (requires more air) than the toxicity criterion, so it governs the flammable-stream design. Methane at 1.25% by volume is the practical ventilation target that ties the XLPE gas-handling design to a hard number.
The make-up air to replace every cubic metre extracted is supplied tempered and filtered per AS 1668.2 and cross-checked against ASHRAE 62.1, delivered to keep the process halls at controlled pressure relative to offices and laboratories so that contaminant migrates toward the extraction, never away from it. The dilution and make-up calculations, documented per zone, are part of the commissioning evidence and the ISO 45001 occupational-health record.
16. The SBKJ machine line for cable-plant duct fabrication
For an Australian fabricator or in-house engineering team building and maintaining cable-plant extraction from Box Hill North VIC or anywhere across the country, the SBKJ Product Catalog 2026 machine set covers the full duct demand described in this guide. Each machine has a defined role in fabricating the corrosion-resistant fume mains, the oil-mist mains, the combustible-dust mains and the high-temperature furnace risers.
- SBAL-V auto duct line with 316L stainless option — the primary machine for corrosion-resistant rectangular fume duct. Forms 304/316L stainless from 0.7 to 1.6 mm (plus galvanised and aluminised for non-corrosive supply and extract) with TDF flange forming. Produces the PVC HCl-fume mains, the XLPE CV-line and degassing vent sections, the LSZH and PE sheathing fume mains and the fibre-coating ozone LEV. Forming around 4–6 m/min on 1.0 mm 316L.
- SBAL-III heavy-gauge auto duct line — heavy 1.6–2.0 mm work for the annealing-furnace downstream exhaust mains, the XLPE CV-line heat-extraction mains and large general-extract trunks.
- SBSF-1525 longitudinal stitch welder — continuous TIG longitudinal seam welding for the corrosive-fume mains (PVC, XLPE, LSZH) so there is no lock-seam crevice for acid condensate; the route to a hermetic, drainable, scrubber-inlet-rated 316L envelope.
- SB-ZF1500 longitudinal stitch welder — in-line continuous longitudinal seam on spiral and heavy-gauge mains 1000–1500 mm; used for the methane vent risers and the high-temperature furnace mains where a hermetic, bonded, Ex-suitable seam is required.
- SBFB-1500 spiral tubeformer — round spiral duct 80–1500 mm diameter for oil-mist mains (pitched and drained, 304/316L) and combustible-polymer-dust mains (18–22 m/s, TIG-welded seam, bonded). The single most-used machine for cable-plant duct fabrication because so much of the plant runs on round spiral.
- SBPC1500 plasma cutter — custom transitions, cones, mitred elbows and refractory-anchor stud plates in 316L, 309/310S high-temperature stainless and heavier plate up to 25 mm, for annealing-furnace hoods, XLPE CV-line transitions and fibre draw-tower furnace risers.
- SBLR-600 lock former — Pittsburgh-lock and snap-lock seams for rectangular duct in galvanised supply/extract and, with heavy-gauge tooling, 1.2 mm 316L where a welded seam is not required.
- SBTF-1500/1602/2020 spiral former — spiral trunk mains 1500–2000 mm for large general-extract trunks, centralised dust-collection trunks and cleanroom-style supply trunks at the largest cable plants.
Configured together, these machines give a fabricator the production envelope to make every duct branch a cable or fibre plant needs — the 316L corrosion-resistant fume mains, the drained oil-mist mains, the bonded combustible-dust mains and the high-temperature furnace risers — and to deliver them to Olex Cables at Tottenham VIC, Nexans Olex, Prysmian Group Australia at Liverpool NSW and Dee Why, Tycab at Coburg, Advance Cables, Electra Cables, TPC Cables, Bambach Wires & Cables, Corning Australia, Madison and across the Australian cable, wire, conductor and fibre-optic sector. SBKJ supplies these machines from Box Hill North VIC with delivery and commissioning Australia-wide; specifications are per the SBKJ Product Catalog 2026 and quoted on request — SBKJ never substitutes invented figures for catalogue values.
17. Commissioning, measurement and verification
A cable-plant extraction system is only as good as its commissioning, and the commissioning of these systems is a documented, instrumented exercise tied back to the standards stack. The sequence runs from construction verification through performance testing to the handover documentation that the cable manufacturer integrates into its ISO 45001, ISO 14001 and ISO 9001 management systems. Construction verification confirms duct material (mill certificates for 316L), continuous-weld integrity on the corrosive-fume mains, gauge and construction class to AS 4254, and the bonding-and-earthing of every hazardous-area duct section (earth resistance below 1 ohm to ground at every joint and isolation valve, recorded). Pressure testing to 1.5× design pressure for 30 minutes on every branch confirms leak-tightness, which on a fume or dust main is a worker-protection requirement, not just an efficiency one.
Performance testing measures airflow and capture. Face velocities at every LEV hood are measured against the design (0.5–1.0 m/s at die-head and enclosure capture points). Transport velocities in the mains are confirmed (8–12 m/s for oil mist, 18–22 m/s for dust). The dilution and make-up airflows are balanced and the inter-zone pressure relationships verified so contaminant migrates toward extraction. LEL monitoring on the XLPE and furnace systems is function-tested through its alarm and trip set-points. Explosion-isolation valves on the dust collectors are proof-tested. Then measurement and verification (M&V) closes the loop: breathing-zone air sampling at the operator positions, by a NATA-accredited laboratory, confirms that the in-use concentrations of oil mist, HCl, copper, aluminium, ozone, acetophenone and the other contaminants are below their WES with the system running under normal production. Continuous fixed monitors (LEL for methane, oxygen for the inert-gas zones, CO for the furnaces) are calibrated and their data-logging confirmed.
The deliverable is a NATA-certified commissioning report that ties every duct branch back to its AS/NZS 60079 zone (gas or dust), its AS 3957 dust hazard classification, its AS 1375 furnace classification where applicable, its AS 1668.2 design airflow, its material certificate, its pressure-test record and its earth-bonding verification. This report is the bridge between the fabricated ductwork and the manufacturer’s ongoing regulatory obligation, and it is the document a SafeWork Australia inspector or an insurer’s risk engineer asks to see first. Ongoing M&V — periodic re-measurement of face velocities, quarterly breathing-zone sampling, and LEV-maintenance records per AS/NZS 1715 RPE assumptions — keeps the system compliant through its life.
18. Energy, heat recovery and sustainability — NCC Section J, Green Star, NABERS
A cable plant moves large volumes of conditioned air — the annealing-furnace heat extraction, the XLPE CV-line heat load, the oil-mist and fume LEV and their tempered make-up air all add up to a significant energy budget, and NCC Section J sets the efficiency floor for the HVAC plant: fan efficiency, duct sealing and insulation, and the energy budget for the conditioning of make-up air. Because every cubic metre extracted must be replaced by tempered make-up air, the make-up-air conditioning load is the dominant HVAC energy cost in a cable plant, and reducing unnecessary extraction (by efficient source capture rather than brute-force dilution) is the single biggest energy lever.
Heat recovery is the second lever and is well-suited to a cable plant because the extracted air carries genuine waste heat — the annealing furnaces, the XLPE cross-linking zone and the degassing ovens all reject heat to their exhaust. An air-to-air heat exchanger (a run-around coil loop or a plate exchanger kept clean of the oil-mist and fume streams, or applied only to the clean general-extract) recovers sensible heat from exhaust to pre-heat make-up air, cutting the conditioning load. The recovery equipment must be selected so it is not fouled by oil mist or corroded by acid fume — which is why recovery is usually applied to the clean general-extract and the furnace sensible-heat streams rather than the contaminated LEV. Beyond the building, Green Star (the Green Building Council of Australia rating) and NABERS (the National Australian Built Environment Rating System) increasingly frame the sustainability expectations for industrial facilities, and an efficient, heat-recovering, well-sealed duct system contributes to both. DDA-compliant access under AS 1428.1 for plant-room and roof-level duct maintenance is part of designing the system for safe, ongoing operation. Designing for energy at the outset — right-sized extraction, source capture over dilution, heat recovery on the clean streams, and well-insulated sealed ductwork — is both an NCC Section J compliance requirement and an operating-cost decision the cable manufacturer feels every month.
19. Industry landscape, materials demand and the standards bodies
The Australian cable and conductor industry is being pulled by the electrification of the economy and the build-out of renewable generation and transmission. The shift to renewable energy, the strengthening and extension of the transmission and distribution network, the electrification of transport and the growth of data infrastructure all drive demand for power cable, building wire, overhead conductor and optical fibre. Copper and aluminium are the two base metals of the industry, and their prices — set on the global metal exchanges and felt directly in the cost of copper rod from refineries and aluminium rod — are a constant commercial pressure; high copper prices periodically push designers toward aluminium conductor for overhead and some distribution applications, which in turn shifts the manufacturing mix toward the aluminium-drawing and combustible-aluminium-dust processes covered in this guide. The renewables and electrification trend is, on balance, expansionary for Australian cable manufacturing and for the process-ventilation investment that supports it.
The industry bodies and standards organisations frame the operating environment. NECA (the National Electrical and Communications Association) represents the electrical contracting industry that installs the cable. Energy Networks Australia represents the electricity and gas network businesses whose investment drives much of the power-cable and conductor demand. Standards Australia publishes the AS/NZS cable product standards — AS/NZS 1125 (conductors), AS/NZS 3808 (insulating and sheathing materials) and the many product-specific cable standards — in alignment with the international IEC standards that govern cable globally; the IEC framework and the AS/NZS adoptions together define what the plant must manufacture to. For the HVAC engineer, the relevance of the cable standards is indirect but real: they define the polymer chemistries (PVC, XLPE, EPR, LSZH) and the conductor metallurgies (copper, aluminium) that the plant processes, and therefore the fume and dust loads the ventilation must control. The HVAC standards — AS 1668, AS 4254, AS/NZS 60079, AS 1375, AS 3957, AS 1940 — are published by Standards Australia in parallel and are the documents the duct designer works to directly.
20. Competitive positioning — why an SBKJ-equipped fabricator wins cable-plant work
Cable-plant extraction is specialist work, and the fabricators who win and keep it are those who can produce the corrosion-resistant, hazard-classified ductwork the industry actually needs, locally and to schedule. A generic commercial sheet-metal shop, tooled for galvanised lock-and-seal duct, cannot economically produce the continuously-welded 316L corrosive-fume mains, the drained oil-mist mains, the bonded combustible-dust mains and the high-temperature furnace risers that a cable or fibre plant demands — and it discovers this, expensively, on its first project. The fabricator equipped with the SBKJ machine line is positioned differently: the SBAL-V stainless line and the SBSF-1525 and SB-ZF1500 stitch welders make hermetic 316L fume duct in production volumes; the SBFB-1500 and SBTF spiral lines make the round oil-mist and dust mains; the SBPC1500 plasma cutter makes the high-temperature furnace transitions. That production envelope, combined with an understanding of the AS/NZS 60079, AS 1375 and AS 3957 requirements set out in this guide, is what lets a fabricator quote cable-plant work with confidence and deliver it without the rework that destroys margin.
SBKJ Group’s position is as the Australian supplier of that production capability. From Box Hill North VIC we supply the machine line, the application engineering, the commissioning support and the ongoing technical advisory that let Australian fabricators and cable manufacturers’ in-house engineering teams serve this sector. We supply locally, we support locally, and we understand the Australian standards stack and the Australian cable industry — Olex at Tottenham, Prysmian at Liverpool, Tycab at Coburg, the building-wire and flexible-cable makers, the fibre operators and the overhead-conductor lines — that this work serves. The result for the fabricator is shorter lead times, local parts and service, and machines configured for exactly the corrosion-resistant and hazard-classified duct the cable industry buys.
21. Closing — SBKJ engineering support for Australian cable and fibre manufacturing
The Australian cable, wire, electrical conductor and fibre-optic manufacturing sector is being expanded by electrification and the renewables build-out, and every increment of capacity — a new XLPE CV line, an additional building-wire extruder, a new draw tower, an expanded compounding plant — brings with it a process-ventilation requirement that is specialist, standards-bound and unforgiving of generic solutions. The hazards are specific: oil mist from drawing, hydrogen chloride from PVC, methane from XLPE peroxide cure, ozone from fibre coating, combustible dust from compounding and aluminium drawing, and high heat from annealing and cross-linking furnaces. The standards are specific: AS 1668, AS 4254, AS/NZS 60079.10.1 and .10.2, AS 1375, AS 3957, AS 1940 and the supporting codes. And the duct material is specific: 316L stainless, continuously welded, bonded and earthed, drained and right-sized.
The SBKJ Group engineering team in Box Hill North VIC supports Australian fabricators and cable manufacturers across every process zone described in this guide, with machine supply (SBAL-V, SBAL-III, SBSF-1525, SB-ZF1500, SBFB-1500, SBPC1500, SBLR-600, SBTF-1500/1602/2020), application engineering, commissioning support and ongoing technical advisory. We will be exhibiting at ARBS 2026 in Sydney in May with the full SBKJ machine portfolio plus cable-plant-specific reference samples covering the 316L corrosion-resistant fume envelope, the drained oil-mist main, the combustible-dust spiral with explosion isolation, and the high-temperature annealing and draw-tower furnace transitions. Pre-show meetings with Australian cable manufacturers, fibre producers, mechanical contractors and existing customers are scheduled across the week.
