Interest in open flame resistance of upholstered furniture began in earnest in the U.S. with a 1994 petition by the National Association of State Fire Marshals to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. The Commission allowed the part of the petition dealing with small open flame resistance and has been conducting research on a small scale test method since that time. The Commission has been seeking public comment on its draft standard but has not yet made a decision on the final standard to be used or the adoption of a test as mandatory for the industry. In addition, the California Bureau of Home Furnishings and Thermal Insulation has announced plans to significantly alter its current California Technical Bulletin 117 requirements for upholstered furniture. These activities have brought a high level of interest in upholstered furniture flammability from all parts of the furniture manufacturing industry and its material suppliers. In part to add to the scientific data available on this subject, research on the fire performance of upholstered furniture composites has been conducted by API (Alliance for the Polyurethanes Industry) member companies using a modification of British Standard 5852 (BS 5852). This research is intended to provide information that could lead to the development of a test method for evaluating the response of laboratory-scale upholstered furniture mock ups to a small open flame ignition source. In the studies conducted to date, composite specimens consisting of fabric and foam combinations used in commercially available upholstered furniture were prepared. Some specimens included either an interliner or polyester batting (while polyester batting is commonly used in commercial, residential upholstered furniture, interliners are normally used only in furniture for some high risk occupancies). The ignition source used in this research was a butane flame about the size of a burning match, placed at the intersection of the seat and back of the mock up. Mass loss measurements during the tests provided quantification of the extent of burning of the specimens and permitted selection of end-points beyond those obtainable by observation alone. This project had three primary objectives. Those objectives may be stated as follows: 1) develop certain flammability data on fabric-foam composite test specimens that are representative of materials used in U.S., or in some cases U.K., residential upholstered furniture; 2) analyze and interpret the data and create a method for presenting the results in a simplified, but quantitative, manner that would permit easy interpretation and extrapolation to full scale furniture evaluations; and 3) develop a test procedure that could be the basis for a regulatory tool to evaluate upholstered furniture flammability resistance.
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