A new approach to testing materials in the NBS smoke chamber

摘要

AbstractThe standard NBS/Aminco smoke test chamber is critically examined from the point of view of repeatability and reproducibility of the apparatus itself. Individual components contributing to the overall determination are examined and suggested lines for improvement are made which should result in more consistent results. Problems associated with the presentation of results are discussed and a new approach which includes time‐weighted data is proposed. This attempts to consider the rate dependence of smoke production in one calculated figure rather than isolated observations such as maximum optical density. Utilizing the NBS/Aminco chamber, a novel procedure for determining the smoke evolution characteristics of materials has been developed which can be considered to simulate more closely the progress of thermal degradation that a material undergoes in a real fir