Description

This report details test methods for assessing the fire hazard of building materials and contents.

Developments in methods for assessing fire behaviour of building materials and contents have introduced 'rate of heat release' as an important parameter that goes beyond the traditional view of fire testing, and purports to measure a fundamental fire property of a product.

No traditional test apparatus measures 'heat release' in a coherent and useable manner; therefore new equipement has been devised to measure rate of heat release, with the addition of other parameters including igniteability, smoke production and toxicity.

Various types of apparatus have been devised to measure rate of heat release. Those currently enjoying favour within the fire research community are the room/corner calorimeter, furniture calormeter, and cone calorimeter, representing a decreasing complexity of test sample preparation. All these apparatus use the oxygen depletion method to determine rate of heat release. This has been found to be the most workable method.