A CURRENT SURVEY ON APPROVED FIRE PERFORMANCE MATERIALS IN JAPAN

Feng He and Shinichi SUGAHARA(The University of Tokyo. 7-3-1 Hongo Bunkyo-ku. Tokyo 113. Japan)

1. ABSTRACT

In Japan. si nce 1969 to 1991. 2701 cases of the fire performance materials are approved. butamong of them. 818 cases are cancelled because of their selling situations. These materials areclassi fi ed int o four classes. non-combusitible. semi-noncombustible. fire retardant and flameretardant. by Japan Building Standard Law. In this survey. at first. the materi~ls are classifiedi n detail. As for the non-cancelled materials. two-thirds of them are occupied by non-combustible.and one-fif th are semi -noncombusti bl e. Then we discuss the relationship among test results. i. e.temperature in t he t est furnace (heat release rate). deformation. smoke generation. melting. crackand after -flame. mainly concerning non-combustible and semi-noncombustible materials. Finally. wedis uss the current Japan test methods.

keywords :survey. fire perfornance material, component . material design.Japan Building Law

2. INTRODUCTION

The importa nt function of interior materials are to prevent fire spread. to help fire fightingand evacuat ions.

In Japan. there are some fire related laws. e.g . Japan Building Standard Law. Fire Service Law anand so on.According t o t hese laws. the requirements of fire performance on building elements. i .e. wall. floor,cei ling. roof and opening are different with occpancy. scale and location of the building. Thenthese elements have to be constructed by the fire performance of materials. which have approved byt he same laws.

Now. there are many kinds of fire performance materials. whose shapes and components are compli­cat eq. Up till now. there are few knowledges about the behaviours at high temperature of variousmaterials and the relationship between their components and fire perfermance. In order to developfurther f i re perfomance design. we believe the necessity of investigating and studying a presentstatus on approved fire performance materials.

3. SURVEY RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

(1 ) Characteristics of various materials and the ir componentsAt f i rst. we cl ass if i ed the fire performance materials (Fig. 1). Fig. 2 shows the approved share

about the non-combustible. semi-noncombustible. fire retardant and flame retardant materials. Thisfigure indicates that 52.8 percent of fire performance materials are approved as non-combustible.The most of them are mainly composed of cement. In addition to them. there ~e much amount of otherinnovative materials made from gypsum and calcium silicate. following various dressed metallicmaterials. (Fig. 3)

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Copyright © International Association for Fire Safety Science

fir e perf orlBrcemater ial

Fig. I

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other. t Ire treeted pl\.WOOd

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wood y board@ --f (; r . Irooloel I,.be<fire treeted pertl cla boerd

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flame retardant@ --c ~~ :~n~~edr~:~ :r~per

Inorgani c C ::~I C

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OOIlP05ltlOf'e L oompourd Nter'II---e5 cceeoette ..terle lI..Hllted boerd decorated IllIter III

-E'Iat plate

f i~r~ corrugated plateextruded boerd

Classification of fire performance materials

Fig.2 Approved share aboutfire performance materials

The number with underline indicatesthe approved cases.The number in circle corresponds tothe material number in Fig. I.

~ metal sheet~ calcium silicate board,'j cement board/,,1 gypsum board

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Fig. 3 Main approved non-combustible materials per yea~

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Moreover. in this survey. we classified a lot of cement boards composed of asbestos and pulpbefore which had been approved until 1978. They are called Asbestos-cement board and pulp-cementboard. Recently. the ban of asbestos has induced the increased production of many organic fibers.e.g. vinylon. cellulose. and acrylic for the reinforcement of cementious composite materials. Theweight percentage is only about O.5~3 percent. And mineral mixture. e.g . diatomaceous earth. ver­miculite and mica come into use for cement boards. Fig. 4 shows the trend of various fibers forreinforcement.

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Fig.4 Ratio of the numbers of fiber reinforced boards to all approved materials(Organic fibers are mainly classified to cellulose. vynyl. polyethrene etc.)

There are 31 percent semi-noncombustible materials containing a small amount of combustible in­gredients. Many of them are some kinds of cementious excelisior boards. The share of approved gypsumboards and metalic plates backed by isocyanuric foam now rapidly increasing for insulating materials.

There are about 12 percent fire retardant materials. Among of them. 70 percent are treated woodymaterials . However. the usage of them is rather limited by regulations. which follows only about 3.2percent flame retardant materials.(2) Test Methods and High Temperature Behaviours of Materials

In Japan. there are five test methods for the fire performance evaluation of materials. i.e. non­combustibility test. flame propagation test. toxicity test. surface test for perforated specimensarID model-box test. The fire performances of materials are measured by the test authorized by JapanBuilding Standard law. (Table.1)

Table. I The test methods for the fire performance evaluation of materials

~non- coe -

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perfated speciaens i.' I •sodel - box test •

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Fig. 5 shows the non-combustibility test results on the temperature difference and the ratio ofweight loss/density. The data of cement or calcium silicate board scatter within the same range. Gen­era l ly. the density of calcium silicate boards is half of cement board. so the weight loss is about50 per~nt less than cement board. It may be main ly because of the difference of crystal water con­t ents. There might exist. however the difference of decomposition at high temperature according toautocraving l evel s . The temperature differences of gypsum boards were lower . but the weight lossesare greater t han the others. Gypsum board contains about 20 percent of crystal water as CaSO• • 2H20.so that it is possible to consider that the separation of crystal water by heat ing mainly makes theweight loss . The densi t y and weight loss of rock or glass wools are very small . However. t he temper­ature di fferences were higher . because of their conta inment of some organic materials.

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Fig. 5 The non-combustible test results of the t emperat ure di fference and the ra tioof weight loss/density

As shown in Table. 1. four tests are needed for the evaluation of semi-noncombustibity. Here wediscuss t he t est results by model-bo x test for isocyanuric foam-gypsum boards and isocyanur ic foam­meta llic plat es. Fig . 6 shows the relationship between the total heat release rate and the max imumtemperature within model box. It may i ndi cat e that temperatures in the center of the floor at the3/4 height of cei ling height is almost equal to average temperature in the box.

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Fig.6 Total heat release rate by model -box test

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Fig. 7(a) and (b) show the relationship between the thickness and the temperature of the unexposedspace of. specimens with the non-combustible and the semi-noncombustible. In spite of the quality ofmaterial. the unexposed side temperature are in an inverse proportion to the thinckness in Fig. 7(a)Fig. 7 (b) shows the relationship between thickness and back up temperature of semi-noncombustiblematerials . the curresobtained by semi-noncombustible materials are located in lower positions thanthat of. non-combustible materials. which may indicate the difference of each combustion heat.

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Thickness d (mm)

a) non-combustible

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Thickness d (mm)

b) semi-noncombustible

Fig.7 The relationship between the thickness and the temperature of unexposed space

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(3) Discussion Points on the Current Test MethodsOn the non-combustibility test . the flame propagation test and the surface test for perforatedspecimens:A. the weight loss and droped-off weight should be measured at some relevant time intervals.B. the conditions of air supply should be varied . for the consideration of actual f ire behaviours.C. the three holes by the surface test for perforated specimens might be doubtful recognized as arepresentative of the jointseam of specimens.D. the data might be difficult for applying to fire simulation models.E. the furnace temperature should be changable for evaluating the effect of crystal water separation.

On the model-box test :A. the dimension of the cribs might not be appropriate as an initial heatsource.B. the dimensions of opening should be varied for the applilcation to a real fire situation.

On the toxicity test:A. the gas data should be compared with the mice activities recorded by an electromagnetic method.B. the toxicity test should be linked with the flame propagation test and simplified to one testmethod.

4. CONCLUSIONS

As ·the result of this ,survey. we got some valuable data classified by each fire performance.which might be useful for developing other innovative fire materials. However. there found a fewdescrepancies among test results obtained from the same sorts of specimens. so· that it seems to beunable to get quantitative characteristics of fire materials and/or components. Some solutions mightexist in the modification of test methods. the appl ications of other adequate methods for analyzinghigh temperature behaviours and the establishment of a fire simulation model .

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