- Author
- Babrauskas, V.
- Title
- Smoke and Gas Evolution Rate Measurements on Fire-Retarded Plastics With the Cone Calorimeter.
- Coporate
- National Bureau of Standards, Gaithersburg, MD
- Journal
- Fire Safety Journal, Vol. 14, No. 3, 135-142, 1989
- Keywords
- cone calorimeters | plastics | flame retardants | smoke
- Identifiers
- effects of retardants on commercial products; effects of retardants with research materials
- Abstract
- The recent advances in the state of the art of fire modeling have pointed to the need for quantitative, dimensionally correct, and apparatus-independent data on smoke production and on the evolution of various gas species. The cone calorimeter was developed originally for making improved rate of heat release measurements. The basic design has proved to be highly versatile, however, allowing it to become a suitable test bed for making smoke and gas evolution studies. The smoke measurement procedures with the cone calorimeter have recently been published by ASTM as a proposed method. Gas evolution measurements are still at the research laboratory stage, but are being actively developed, with a strong role being seen in the near future for both fire modeling and combustion toxicity. The techniques evolved are seen to be especially useful for comparing fire-retarded materials to non-retarded ones.