Fire-retardant systems, evaluation

Basic Mechanisms. Finally, further work is necessary on fundamental mechanisms of individual fire retardants. These mechanisms are a function of the particular chemicals involved and the environmental conditions of the fire exposure. There is a need to establish common methods and conditions for determining these mechanisms in order to compare different treatments. This would give us a better understanding of how these compounds work in action and would provide a more efficient approach for formulating fire-retardant systems than a trial and error approach. Correlations also need to be established between rapid precise thermal analysis methods and standard combustion tests. Retardant formulations could be evaluated initially on smaller (research and development size) samples. The more promising treatments could be tested for flame-spread index, heat release rate, and toxic smoke production. 

Fire-retardant white paint (system 1), which flashed and flamed intermittently during the second determination, also burned for 20 to 30 seconds during one of the preliminary evaluations. This confirms previous laboratory thermoelectric fire test rein FIRE RETARDANT PAINTS ... 

Studies are currently being conducted on smoke development and heat release rate from treated and untreated wood and wood products (52,56). An evaluation of the available treatment systems for wood shingles and shakes was completed using artificial weathering (11). A further development from this work was a new ASTM Standard Method D2898 (67,68) for testing durability of fire-retardant treatment of wood. 

To conclude, there are many applications where fire retardant FRP can be used and demand for FRP materials is likely to continue to increase due to the superior properties that FRP materials can have. Again, many factors need to be evaluated when determining whether FRP can be used and what resin and reinforcement system needs to be used to meet the requirements. When a flame retardant FRP is designed, the following factors must be considered ... 

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