Compartment and Façade Large Scale Tests: Behavior Comparison of Different Insulating Materials in Case of Fire

Abstract

Fire safety community is currently concerned about the response of some widely used insulating materials in case of fire, due to the fact that existing regulations do not show how these materials behave in real conditions, which in some applications may be indeed critical. Within this context, several institutions have recently carried out large-scale tests with the aim of testing such insulator's contribution to fire growth. In this paper we present a set of large scale tests of compartment and façade fires involving materials and configurations of different nature. Our experiments provided evidence that mineral wool insulator preserves its properties in case of fire, whilst other polymerictype insulators contribute to fire growth in conditions close to the ones present in real fires.

Fire behavior of flame retarded sandwich structures containing PET foam cores and epoxy face sheets

“…Common tests for sandwich materials are proceeded in real case scenarios or downscaled related test setups for sandwich panels, such as ISO 13784 (Reaction to fire tests for sandwich panel building systems) 28–30 . For the construction sector, more standards such as DIN EN ISO 1524 or 1716 and DIN EN 13823 or 11 925 are established.…”

“…27 Common tests for sandwich materials are proceeded in real case scenarios or downscaled related test setups for sandwich panels, such as ISO 13784 (Reaction to fire tests for sandwich panel building systems). [28][29][30] For the construction sector, more standards such as DIN EN ISO 1524 or 1716 and DIN EN 13823 or 11 925 are established. Evaluating the fire behavior by cone calorimetry is a versatile lab scale method to determine specific flammability and combustion characteristics which is established in the fire science today.…”