The Natural Philosopher <
[email protected]d> wrote:
On 29/04/2025 19:32, Brian wrote:
Jeff Layman <[email protected]d> wrote:
On 27/04/2025 18:09, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Chapter and verse
https://www.firesafe.org.uk/furniture-and-furnishings-fire-safety-regulations-19881989-and-1993/
That's useful. Filed for reference.
If I put my pedant hat on, isn't point 1 of the summary worded oddly:
"Filling materials must meet specified ignition requirements"
Shouldn't that be "Filling materials must meet specified non-ignition
requirements"?
I vaguely recall something one of my chemistry teachers said - 50 years ago or so.
Basically, everything will burn - if you get it hot enough.
Technically no. Burning is a self sustaining exothermic chemical
reaction that usually involves oxygen, either from the air or generated
by the inflammable materials itself (like Li-ion batteries)
Other things melt, decomposed chemically, vaporise or turn to plasma but
they don't burn..
Indeed.
Manufactured stuff often burns because it's composed of long carbon chains
from either natural or oil-based origin. Apply enough heat and oxygen and
it because energetically advantageous to break those chains, down to CO2 ultimately.
But take say silica sand - SiO2. It's got enough oxygen already thanks very much and applying heat is not going to change that - it'll melt and
vapourise but won't burn as there's no energetically advantageous bonds to break.
Of course, in practical terms, the materials used in furnishing need not to ignite at the kind of temperatures they are likely to be exposed to. I assume, in broad terms, that is what is specified in the document above.
The big push came IIRC when people were dying of smoke inhalation of
plastic foam fillings. And you got flashovers from that smoke as well
which wer explosive in natiure.
I think you can still get those from the foam materials, but the fire retardants mean the fire is not self-sustaining. If you have an external source of heat that keeps on being applied (eg a blowtorch or a furnace)
then you'll decompose the foam into toxic/flammable gases, but it's much
harder to get that started with a discarded cigarette than it previously
was.
Things like horsehair are not so bad. Nor are feathers.
Being a natural product the compounds are different. You can still get flashover from gases from wood pyrolysis, but it takes more than with
oil-based products. OTOH manufactured fire retardants may work better than
the fire retarding properties of natural fibres.
Theo
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)