Year: 1982
Type: report
Abstract: Accurate burning rate information on upholstered furniture is important for two purposes -to predict the room fire development history for a fire involving the furniture, and to relatively, but adequately, rank commercial products for a given application.Smallscale test result data not referenced to full-scale fires lack validity, while full-scale room fires are costly and lack generality.To enable simplified but realistic full-scale testing to be done, a new apparatus, termed a furniture calorimeter was developed.Rates of heat release are measured by using the oxygen consumption principle.Tests were conducted in the furniture calorimeter on thirteen different specimens of upholstered furniture, representing typical, but carefully controlled, construction.The results showed significant heat release differences between thermoplastic and cellulosic fabrics, between frame types and between padding materials.For polyurethane foam padding, however, performance was unrelated to results of Bunsen burner type tests on the foam.The data developed (1) can be used directly in the calculation of room fire growth;(2) will form some of the reference data for development of appropriate bench-scale test procedures; and (3) can be used in some cases to estimate burning rates of similar but not identical furniture.
Language: English
Subfield: Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
OpenAlex ID: W121857534