- Author
- Magnusson, S. E.
- Title
- Test Methods and Standards.
- Coporate
- Lund Institute of Technology, Sweden
- Book or Conf
- International Conference on Flammability. INTERFLAM '85. Conference Workbook. March 26-28, 1985, Guildford, England, 227-234 p., 1985
- Keywords
- flammability tests
- Abstract
- The paper gives an outline of the present status of the ISO flammability tests and records the changing role bench scale tests play in estimates of fire hazard. In previous decades methods were developed completely empirically and required simply to rank materials in an order not too much deviating from a perception of real world performance. During the last few years, the attempts to mathematically model fire spread and growth have been increasingly successful. This review demonstrates, with examples taken from an extensive Swedish investigation on room fire growth on surface lining materials, how results from small scale flammability tests today can be used in an analytical fire growth model to predict full scale rate of energy release and to rank materials. As of now, the applicability is limited to one specified scenario with the surface lining on both walls and ceiling but extensions to other material configurations should be possible soon. An important link in this process to validate the small scale tests is the development of an internationally standardized full scale room test (which, of course, also serves as a classification tool for lining materials in itself).