To explore whether the gas produced by cable overheating can serve as early indicators of fires

this paper develops a simulation device to replicate overheating faults of power cables under practical engineering conditions.Early-stage fire-related gases are collected under various heating scenarios.The results show that gas generation on cable surfaces is caused by volatilization and thermal decomposition.The main gas components identified include acetophenone

2-phenylisopropanol

isooctanol

benzene

α-methylstyrene

5-methyl-2-undecene

ethylhexyl benzoate

and diisooctyl terephthalate.Furthermore

several stage-representative gases were selected and analyzed using an unsupervised clustering algorithm.The analysis confirms that isooctanol

acetophenone

and benzene can serve as characteristic gases for early-stage warning of power cable fires.