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Raw materials and textile materials of both natural and artificial origin, are currently finding
a wider and wider range of applications. Textiles are used in many areas of everyday life, as well as technical materials. The widespread use of textiles also carries all kinds of risks these products can create. One of them is the fire hazard.
There are several parameters commonly regarded as necessary to determine the properties of combustible materials:
– flammability – defined as the minimum time of impact on a sample of a low-energy source
of ignition until the start of the determined combustion,
– flame spread – speed of flame front travel after initiation of its combustion,
– heat release – the amount of heat generated in a unit of time during the combustion of the tested material,
– smoke production – tested by measuring the optical density of air in the vicinity of the burning material,
– production of toxic gases – here, under standard test conditions, the quantities of gases generated in the process of thermal decomposition and combustion of the tested material are determined.
In the European system, construction products are classified in a manner significantly different from the descriptive terms used in Poland regarding the degree of flammability of materials. In national technical and construction regulations regarding the degree of flammability and fire properties, the following definitions still exist:
– non-flammable materials
– combustible materials that we divide into: non-flammable and easily flammable
– as well as materials that do not spread fire or self-extinguish.
In contrast, European requirements, described in the EN13501-1 standard, use the Euroclass system, classifying building materials in terms of reaction to fire as classes: A1, A2, B, C, D, E, F together with additional criteria taking into account smoke production and
occurrence of burning drops.
PVC materials, which Sako-Expo is the dealer for the world wide market, are considered flame-retardant when they can not support fire at all. Normal materials of good brands should not burn quickly and according to ISO 3795 they do not burn faster than 100 mm/min. So if the material burns 50 mm / min it is better regarding this parameter, but it is not slow-burning. For a flame-retardant threshold, this should be 0 mm/min. Sometimes a different DIN 75200 standard is used to describe the behavior with fire. In order for the material to be flame-retardant it must resist fire fully – this is described by a number of standards. Here the choice is made from the point of view of the product to which the material is to be used, or simply the customer’s requirements.
