Chair burns in the TB133 room, the ASTM room, the furniture calorimeter and the cone calorimeter

Abstract

Ten sets of upholstered chairs were tested in the California Technical Bulletin 133 (TB133) room, in the proposed ASTM room and in the NIST furniture calorimeter. The chairs varied only in the type of fabric, type of foam, and whether or not there was a fiberglass interliner present. The rooms were instrumented to measure the total heat release rate of the chairs. A relationship was established between the peak heat release rate in the rooms and the temperature rise 25 mm below the ceiling above the chair. The combinations of fabric, fiberglass interliner and foam were also tested in the Cone calorimeter. A correlation of the full scale and bench scale results for this set of chairs was obtained. Calculations were made of the upper layer temperature in the room, using Hazard I and the measured heat release rates.