Citation

Paul KT, King DA. Fire Safety J. 1990; 16(5): 389-410.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1990, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This paper describes a series of domestic armchair burning tests carried out by Rapra Technology Ltd and sponsored by the Beaverco group of companies. The tests compared a series of actual chairs containing flexible standard polyurethane and high-resilience polyurethane foam with chairs containing combustion modified, high-resilience polyurethane foam developed by Beaverco plc (SafeguardTM) based on melamine/PIPA technology.Upholstered armchairs containing different types of polyurethane (PU) foams and covered by various popular fabrics were burned in a room/corridor test rig. A limited number of chair designs were used, and an important feature of these tests was the three series of armchairs of constant design in which only the fabric and PU-foam upholstery was varied. The chairs typified the various stages of UK domestic furniture requirements up to and including the post-1990 requirements for cigarette-resistant composites, match-resistant covers and combustion modified, high-resilience PU upholstery foams.Each chair was ignited by the source required to cause sustained burning, and measurements were made continuously of ceiling temperature, smoke density and volume, CO, CO2, O2, and NO concentrations. HCN measurements were made using chemical reagent tubes.