Material properties and fire test results

Abstract

Five material properties commonly used to describe the fire behavior of solids were evaluated as sole explanatory variables for four small‐scale fire tests with pass/fail outcomes by using a physically based probabilistic (phlogistic) burning model. The phlogistic model describes the likelihood of passing vertical Bunsen burner tests and a regulatory heat release rate test reasonably well over a wide range of material properties, as deduced from the correlation coefficient and mean deviation of the predicted and measured values. Of the thermal, combustion, and fire properties examined, the best predictors of the likelihood of passing the fire tests of this study were the heat of combustion of the sample, the heat release capacity, and the heat release parameter. The relative merits and drawbacks of qualitative (threshold) and quantitative (probabilistic) approaches to predicting fire test results using thermal and combustion properties are discussed. Published 2013. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.

Calorimetry

“…The thermal combustion properties measured in the MCC are related to flammability characteristics of the material [69][70][71][72][73]. For example, the heat release temperature from method A approximates the surface temperature at ignition.…”

Synthesis and flammability testing of epoxy functionalized phosphorous‐based flame retardants

“…It should be noted that the PCFC is a very good tool for screening, but it may not always generate results that predict perfectly fire performance in fullscale fire tests. While there have been some notable advances in how the PCFC can predict performance in some larger scale tests, 29 fire performance that rely heavily upon physical behavior (example, drip-back away from the flame) will not be captured or observed correctly by the PCFC. Relevant for the fire safety goals of this article, screening for heat release reduction potential will be useful for finding new materials that lower the heat release in polyurethane foam in furniture and bedding, but that same PCFC data may not predict "passing" results in existing fire safety tests where heat release is not a key focus of said test.…”

“…Fire performance was screened for heat release reduction potential via pyrolysis combustion flow calorimetry (PCFC), a proven tool for flame retardant screening. [12][13][14][15][16][17] Some discussion on the flame retardant potential and mechanism is included, but it must be cautioned that due to the limited data in this article, we can only infer mechanism and reaction into the polyurethane.…”

A microscale combustion calorimeter study of gas phase combustion of polymers

“…The sample mass remaining at 950°C after pyrolysis, m char , was used to calculate the char yield, y char = l = m char /m 0 , and the yield of volatiles, y gas = 1 À l. Yields of CO, CO 2 and oxygen demand DO 2 were measured at X 0 O 2 ¼ 0:2 and calculated as per Eq. (12). All data are averages of at least three measurements.…”

“…The most important flammability parameter of a material measured in the MCC is the heat released by combustion [12]. The rate of heat released by complete combustion of hydrocarbon fuels calculated by oxygen consumption calorimetry is [13],…”