Correlation Between Small-scale Rate Of Heat Release And Full-scale Room Flashover For Surface Linings

Abstract

A very simple empirical relationship has been found for predicting the time to flashover in a full-scale room fire test for surface lining materials. It is based on bench-scale measurements of rate of heat release in the cone calorimeter. The relation also includes the time to ignition and the density of the linings. T = a x t. VP + b A where T is time to flashover in full scale, t is time to ignition in small scale at 25 kW/m 2, A is heat release during peak period at 50 kW/m 2, p is density, a and b are constants. It is valid for the eleven different surface linings which caused flashover. They included both fully combustible and essentially non-combustible materials, with or without thin surface coverings. Two linings did not cause flashover and can not be directly correlated, but their small-scale data indicate longer times to flashover than for the other lining materials. However, the application of the relationship for other surface materials or other full-scale fire scenarios has not yet been investigated. I NTRODUCT ION The early fire behaviour of materials is important for many aspects of fire safety. New fire tests are in development e.g. within ISO (8, 17) in order to determine and characterize the fire behaviour in a more elaborate way than the present national test methods. One main aspect in the development is that no classes of materials should be precluded from testing e.g. melting materials. Other aspects are that the new tests should be physically well-defined and also have a clear connection to some "real" fire behaviour.