Effects of faults in the application of fire retardants in correlation with the efficiency of fire retardant materials on fire performance

Abstract

Purpose Fire protection regulations are difficult to comply with in the case of wooden structures because of the fact that wood is a combustible material. The fire protection of wood can be solved with coatings or by the application of flame retardants. Design/methodology/approach The standard of MSZ EN 1995‐1‐2 currently does not allow the consideration of fire retardants in case of scaling the fire load. In spite of the aforementioned, today there are many types of retardants on the market that are reliable and allow us to achieve a better fire protection classification. Findings The question is how sensitive a wood preservative is to a construction fault, or what would be the result of the erroneously applied fire retardant to the fire protection characteristics of timber used in constructions. Originality/value During the research, five different fire retardants were tested on three types of wood and their behaviour was monitored under controlled laboratory circumstances. When selecting the wood, it was important to take the wood species that are most commonly used in the construction industry, and their density should be as different as possible. During the tests, the wood preservative was applied incorrectly, modelling the following cases: applying less or more wood preservatives, and creating small and large faults.