- Author
-
Budnick, E. K.
- Title
- Fire Spread Along a Mobile Home Corridor. Interim Report.
- Coporate
- National Bureau of Standards, Gaithersburg, MD
- Sponsor
- Department of Housing and Urban Development, Washington, DC
- Report
-
NBSIR 76-1021,
July 1976,
56 p.
- Distribution
- Available from National Technical Information Service
- Keywords
-
corridor tests
|
interior finishes
|
intumescent coatings
|
life safety
|
mobile homes
|
smoke detectors
|
surface flame spread
|
tunnel tests
- Abstract
- A series of tests was conducted in the corridor area of a typically constructed mobile home. These tests were designed to: (1) evaluate the performance of a variety of combinations of wall and ceiling materials as a result of exposure to a typical ignition in a full-scale mobile home corrridor, and (2) determine the relationship between full-scale tests and laboratory flammability tests, particularly the ASTM E-84 tunnel test, a measure of surface flame spread. The tests were restricted to one set of conditions in which the living room at the end of the corridor was exposed to a fire resulting from ignition of a standardized 6.4-kg (14-lb) wood crib. Nine tests were conducted with seven different combinations of wall and ceiling materials. Performance of the various combination of wall and ceiling materials was examined based on the time to reach untenable conditions in the corridor. Measurements utilized in evaluating levels of tenability included gas temperatures, surface temperatures, irradiance, concentrations of oxygen and carbon monoxide, and smoke densities. Under this set of test conditions, it was found that the extent of fire spread and the time to reach untenable conditions are significantly influenced by the surface flame spread characteristics of the wall and ceiling finish materials in the corridor. For a mobile home corridor with conventional wall and ceiling linings (ASTM E-84:FSC= 200max), untenable conditions were reached in the corridor in less than four minutes. With class A (FSC = 25 max) wall and ceiling materials in the corridor, untenable conditions were not reached.