- Author
- Babrauskas, V.
- Title
- Cone Calorimeter.
- Coporate
- National Bureau of Standards, Gaithersburg, MD
- Book or Conf
- Society of the Plastics Industry Inc., International Combustibility Symposium, 13th. Conference Proceedings. April 17-18, 1985, Arlington, VA, 1-1 p., 1985
- Keywords
- cone calorimeters | oxygen consumption
- Abstract
- The Cone Calorimeter is a second-generation rate of heat release apparatus, developed at the National Bureau of Standards to utilize the principle of oxygen consumption calorimetry. Prior to the availability of this principle, a rate of heat release apparatus had to be designed to directly measure enthalpy. This type of measurement is very difficult to do correctly and to absolute calibration. Improvements can be obtained by using the more complex isothermal instead of adiabatic designs, these, however, are very costly to implement. By contrast, oxygen consumption measurements are easier to implement accurately, since loss of heat from the apparatus does not have to be prevented. The apparatus developed has been termed the cone calorimeter since it uses a heater in the form of a truncated cone. Specimens 100 mm by 100 mm and up to 50 mm thick can be tested in either horizontal or vertical orientation and exposed to heating fluxes of 0 to over 100 kW/m2. The instrument was designed to be more rugged, easier to operate, and easier to calibrate than previous designs. Currently both ASTM and ISO are developing standards based on the instrument.