Effect of Resin Type and Glass Content on the Fire Engineering Properties of Typical FRP Composites

摘要

This study is designed to provide the composites industry as well as the fire engineering industry baseline data and engineering "properties" of common fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) systems. Four resin systems and three glass contents will be considered. This matrix of FRP systems has been carefully fabricated and documented so as to provide "transparency" as to the system compositions. An important and interesting aspect of these FRP systems is that all the resins used are listed by the manufacturers as Class 1 or Class A per ASTM E 84. The FRP systems are being evaluated in bench scale modern fire test apparatuses (FPA, ASTM E 2058, and the Cone Calorimeter, ASTM E 1354). These apparatuses provide a range of measurements such as heat release rate that can be used to calculate engineering "properties" of these FRP systems. The "properties", such as minimum heat flux for proper ignition and the b flame spread parameter, can then be used to compare the fire performance of these FRP systems according to resin type and glass content. The fire performance criterion to be used is flashover (full room involvement). Modern building codes in general require the fire engineer to design to prevent flashover from occurring.