THERMAL SCIENCE

International Scientific Journal

THE MELT/SHRINK EFFECT OF LOW DENSITY THERMOPLASTICS INSULATES: CONE CALORIMETER TESTS

ABSTRACT
The melt/shrink effects on the fire behavior of low density thermoplastic foam have been studied in a cone calorimeter. The experiments have been performed with four samples of expanded polystyrene foams having different thicknesses and two extruded polystyrene foams. Decrease in surface area and increase in density, characterizing the melt/shrink effect have been measured at different incident heat fluxes. Three of these foams tested have been also examined by burning tests at an incident heat flux of 50 kW/m2. It was assessed that the fire behavior predictions based the current literature models provided incorrect results if the cone test results were applied directly. However, the correct models provided adequate results when the initial burning area and the density of the molten foam were used to correct the initial cone calorimeter data. This communication refers to the fact that both the effective burning area and the density of the molten foam affect the cone calorimeter data, which requires consequent corrections to attain adequate predictions of models about the materials fire behavior.
KEYWORDS
PAPER SUBMITTED: 2015-03-04
PAPER REVISED: 2015-04-08
PAPER ACCEPTED: 2015-04-20
PUBLISHED ONLINE: 2015-05-03
DOI REFERENCE: https://doi.org/10.2298/TSCI150304058X
CITATION EXPORT: view in browser or download as text file
THERMAL SCIENCE YEAR 2017, VOLUME 21, ISSUE Issue 5, PAGES [2177 - 2187]
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© 2024 Society of Thermal Engineers of Serbia. Published by the Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences, National Institute of the Republic of Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International licence