- Author
- Mehta, A. K. | Wong, F. | Padia, A.
- Title
- Measurement of Flammability and Burn Potential of Fabrics. Progress Report 3.
- Coporate
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge
- Sponsor
- National Science Foundation, Washington, DC
- Report
- Progress Report 3; Project DSR 72894, October 1, 1971, 36 p.
- Contract
- NSF-GI-27188
- Keywords
- fabrics | flammability | burns (injuries) | skin burns (human) | flame propagation
- Identifiers
- results of performance tests on electroformed skin-simulant; modification in simulant instrumentation; preliminary tests on burning of fabrics and predicted resultant burn injury
- Abstract
- Progress during this quarter has included the testing of a rod-type skin simulant made by electroforming. The performance tests showed this simulant to have the design properties for simulating the values of kcp and k/cp for skin with a stretch factor of 28.4 and performance as a semi-infinite solid for exposure times up to 30 seconds. About 65 preliminary tests have been carried out on all the GIRFCFF fabric types at five different orientations, e.g. horizontal, vertical (flame propagating both upwards and downwards), 45 deg C (flame both upwards and downwards) with cloth spaced 1/2" above the surface of the electroformed skin-simulant. The burn injury resulting from the burning of fabric has been evaluated for each case using the Henriques damge integral citerion. The tests have been done under uncontrolled conditions of ambient with an objective of studying the relative burning characteristics of the different types of fabric and supplying guidelines for future work and as such should be treated as semiquantitative in nature. Flame propagation velocities have been determened by visual observation whenever possible. For 100% cotton and 65/35 polyester-cotton blends flame speed was inversely proportional to fabric weight per square yard. Preliminary comparisons of flme spread rate with the theory of De Ris' have shown promise. Further elaboration of the theory is in progress. A preliminary design of a flame spread apparatus similar to that of Miller has been made.