- Author
- Ohlemiller, T. J. | Villa, K. M.
- Title
- Furniture Flammability: An Investigation of the California Bulletin 133 Test. Part 2. Characterization of the Ignition Source and a Comparable Gas Burner.
- Coporate
- National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD
- Report
- NISTIR 4348, June 1990, 42 p.
- Distribution
- Available from National Technical Information Service
- Keywords
- furniture | flaming combustion | flammability | ignition | test methods | chairs | ignition source
- Identifiers
- crumpled newsprint
- Abstract
- The California Bulletin 133 upholstery ignition source is based on the use of crumpled newsprint. The present work examined the reproducibility of several aspects of this source when placed on an inert chair mock-up. The tendency of this source to heat the side arms of a chair, the area of the seat back subjected to high heat fluxes, the peak flux there and the flux duration all showed substantial variability. For inherently lesser variability a gas burner is preferred. A gas burner, derived from that developed at the British Fire Research Station, was shaped so as to deposit a similar pattern of heat to that of the CB 133 source. The two sources were tested for comparability both on chair mock-ups and on full-scale chairs made from a wide variety of materials. The results indicate that the gas burner, as used here, is a somewhat less severe ignition source than is the CB 133 igniter.