A study of the effect of thickness on the thermal degradation and flammability characteristics of some composite materials using a cone calorimeter

In this article, we report on our investigation regarding the influence of the thickness on the thermal and fire response characteristics of two types of composite materials. For this purpose, carbon fibre-reinforced epoxy and glass fibre-reinforced phenolic resin samples, differing in thicknesses, were chosen. The primary aim was to investigate the effect of using multiple layers on the thermal degradation and fire reaction properties of the composite material using a cone calorimeter. The results showed that the primary fire reaction parameters such as the time to ignition and peak heat release rates depended on the number of the layers. Furthermore, the amount of smoke released during the thermal degradation was found to decrease as the number of layers increased. In addition, the carbon dioxide emission levels were also observed to be dependent on the number of layers.