- Author
- Babrauskas, V.
- Title
- Full-Scale Burning Behavior of Upholstered Chairs.
- Coporate
- National Bureau of Standards, Gaithersburg, MD
- Sponsor
- Veterans Administration, Washington, DC Department of Defense, Washington, DC Consumer Product Safety Commission, Washington, DC
- Report
- NBS TN 1103, August 1979, 86 p.
- Distribution
- Available from National Technical Information Service
- Keywords
- chairs | compartment fires | flammability | fire tests | upholstered furniture
- Abstract
- A test program was conducted to determine the fire behavior of a variety of upholstered chairs subjected to a flaming ignition. Major variables were materials and construction of charis, room ventilation, and type of ignition sources. A total of 16 types of traditional and modern design chairs were tested in a full-scale, otherwise unfurnished room. A folded up newspaper at the seat area was used as the standard ignition source. Room tenability criteria were based on smoke, concentrations of gaseous combustion products, and heat flux. One or more tenability criteria were exceeded for 14 chairs, in times ranging from 100 sec to 650 sec; two chairs burned without exceeding any of the tenability criteria. A review is included of previous upholstered furniture experiments using flaming ignition sources and of existing or proposed small-scale standard tests.