- Author
-
Marker, T. R.
- Title
- Laboratory-Scale and Full-Scale Fire Testing of Lightweight Aircraft Seat Cushion Materials. Final Report.
- Coporate
- Federal Aviation Administration, Atlantic City International Airport, NJ
- Report
-
DOT/FAA/AR-06/49; ANM-115,
March 2007,
49 p.
- Keywords
-
seats
|
cushions
|
fire tests
|
large scale fire tests
|
weight loss
|
fire safety
|
urethanes
|
aircraft safety
|
thermocouples
|
gas sampling
|
smoke
|
heat flux
|
measuring instruments
|
survival
|
commercial aviation
|
flammability
|
polyurethane foams
|
fuel fires
- Identifiers
- weight loss criteria; lightweight seat; fractional effective dose; use of survival model to rank test results; baseline configuration; lightweight configurations
- Abstract
- As technological advancements in materials processing continue to unfold, the commercial aviation industry is finding new ways to improve comfort and reduce weight. Historically, the most cost-effective means of meeting the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) flammability requirements for aircraft seating, in particular burn length and weight percentage loss, has been to use a polyurethane foam encapsulated in a fire-blocking material and an outer dress cover. However, with the introduction of newer materials and concepts, the aircraft seat manufacturers are capable of achieving the same level of comfort as the traditional polyurethane seat, but with considerable weight savings. Because of the substantial difference in weight between the new materials and traditional materials, the applicability of the FAA performance requirements has been questioned. Although the new foam cushion seating materials are often as fire-resistant as traditional polyurethane foam, these lighter materials may be unfairly judged based on the weight loss criteria, which was originally based on heavier, polyurethane foam in conjunction with fire-blocking materials. For example, at 10% weight loss, a traditional 5-pound seat may lose up to 0.5 pound of mass, while a new generation seat weighing only 3 pounds would far exceed the weight loss criteria by losing the identical 0.5 pound (16.67% weight loss). This study was undertaken to determine if the lighter seat foam materials that do not meet the weight loss criteria are more or less hazardous than traditional seats under realistic cabin fire test conditions. Tests were conducted using a full-scale, narrow-body test article adjacent to a fuel pan fire, which simulated a realistic postcrash cabin fire scenario. Initial tests using seats comprised of urethane foam encapsulated in a fire-blocking barrier were run to establish baseline results, followed by tests using four types of lightweight seat material. Results indicated that several of the lightweight seat materials that failed the current weight loss criteria specified in Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 25.853(c) Appendix F Part II did not result in greater fire hazards than the baseline materials when tested under realistic full-scale conditions. Consequently, a conservative adjustment to the current weight loss criteria was developed to allow the use of very lightweight seat cushion materials that exhibit acceptable fire performance.