A NEW INTERMEDIATE-SCALE FIRE TEST FOR EVALUATING THE PERFORMANCE OF WALL AND CEILING PANELS IN LARGE-SCALE FIRE

摘要

A new intermediate-scale fire test has been developed to evaluate material flammability of wall and ceilingassemblies. The scale of the test is large enough for the testing materials to reveal their true behavior infull-scale fire but still small enough to provide substantial savings in the cost of testing. The test apparatusconsists of parallel panels of the material assemblies being evaluated which are 1.07 m wide and 4.9 mhigh, separated by 0.53 m. A 360 kW propane sand burner is used as the ignition source. The fire test isconducted under a 5-MW fire products collector. The test has been successful compared with results fromFM Approvals’ 25-ft and 50-ft corner test used for testing wall/ceiling panels and other similar buildingmaterials for decades. Materials evaluated at various thicknesses include: polyvinylchloride, fire retardantplywood, fiberglass reinforced melamine, panels with metal facers, polyurethane, polystyrene, andpolyisocyanurate foam. The heat release rates from the burning panels measured in the parallel panel testswere used to predict the outcome of the corner tests. Comparisons with the 25-ft and 50-ft corner testsindicate that fire propagation behavior in the corner tests correlates well with the maximum heat releaserate (HRR) in the parallel panel test as follows: fire will not propagate to the end of the test array in the25-ft corner test with wall panels only if the HRR in the parallel panel test is less than 1100 kW; fire willnot reach the top of the test array in the 50-ft corner test if the HRR in the parallel panel is less than 830kW; fire propagation will not reach the ends of the horizontal ceiling in the 25-ft corner test with bothcombustible wall and ceiling panels if the HRR in the parallel panel test is less than 830 kW. Smokeemission rates were also measured optically in the tests. Smoke emission rate was less than 120mg / sfrom very-low-smoke-emission panels and the rate was greater than 120 but less than 240mg / s fromlow-smoke-emission panels.