SR63 Use of the cone calorimeter for determining hazard of building materials and contents in fire (1995)
Product Description
This report, carried out at BRANZ, details recent developments in test methods for assessing the fire hazard of building materials and contents.
Many methods have been developed for the assessment of fire behaviour of building materials and contents. he parameters traditionally measured are: ignitability, spread of flame, combustibility, smoke and toxic gas production. More recent developments have introduced rate of heat release as an important parameter that goes beyond the traditional view of fire testing and purports to measure a fundamental fire property of a product.
Various types of apparatus have been devised to measure rate of heat release. Those currently enjoying favour within the fire research community are the room/corner calorimeter, furniture calorimeter and cone calorimeter, representing a decreasing complexity of test sample preparation.
All these apparatus use the oxygen depletion method to determine rate of heat release. This has been found to be the most workable method. Because of the fundamental nature of the fire property measured, results from the rate of heat release equipment can be used as input data for mathematical fire growth models to predict real fire growth.
As well as being used for this purpose, they are used to obtain comparative data for material fire performance and for fire performance classification for regulatory purposes. The latter aspect is still being researched and discussed, although the apparatus are well established as research tools.
Product Information
Publication date | 1995 |
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Author | E Soja |
System number | SR063 |