An experimental study of the thermal performance of a novel intumescent fire protection coating

The thermal performance of a novel intumescent coating was investigated at a laboratory scale. A combination of small and large-scale tests was performed in order to fully understand the behavior of the coating. For small-scale testing, experiments were conducted using thermogravimetric analyses. These experiments were run at several heating rates in a nitrogen atmosphere. The results showed that the thermal degradation of the coating occurred in different stages, and, the main mass loss took place around 300 degrees C. Furthermore, the current work showed that oxygen doesn't exert any significant effect during the early stages of degradation of the materials; however, its interference can be noted past the attainment of the peak value for mass loss rate curve. For large-scale testing, the experiments were carried out in a cone calorimeter using a stainless steel plate as a platform to support the test specimen. The back surface temperature and expansion height of the intumescent coating were measured as a function of time. Several factors such as heat flux, distance to cone heater and coating thickness were also investigated. The results showed that the normalized expansion height of intumescent coating was consistent at different heat flux levels. Hence the expansion of the coating can be considered to be dependent only on the mass loss rates and not the value of the external heat flux. Also, results from the cone tests, permit the formulation of an experimental protocol for evaluating of the thermal shielding efficiency of the intumescent coatings. The results showed that the data obtained using a cone calorimeter with 2.5 cm of distance cannot be compared with other distances, such as 4 or 6 cm. The present work also showed that the values of the relevant parameters did not differ significantly at distances to the cone heater above 4 cm. In a second evaluation, the new intumescent coating was applied to polyurethane and Gypsum boards, for study using cone calorimetry. The use of the coating led to a decrease in the peak of heat release rate for combustion of polyurethane. The application of a coating layer can be used to decrease the overall requirement of thickness of the Gypsum board without compromising its thermal insulation performance.