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This study focuses on the increased risk of high heat release and asphyxiation (toxic gas poisoning) in the event of a fire involving polyurethane (PU)- and MDF-based building materials, which are commonly used in buildings. Among them, polyurethane (PU) building materials are very commonly used in buildings, except in Europe and some other countries, due to their excellent thermal insulation performance. Still, problems of short-term heat release and the spread of toxic gases in the event of a fire continue to occur. To overcome these problems, researchers are actively working on introducing various flame retardants into building materials. Therefore, in this study, we produced a laboratory-sized (500 mm × 500 mm) plate-like flame-retardant board that can be utilized as a building material with a lower heat release rate and a lower toxicity index. The material was made by mixing expanded graphite and ceramic binder as flame retardants in a material that is formulated based on the cellulose of waste paper, replacing the existing building materials with a hot-press method. According to the ISO-5660-1 test on the heat release rate of the plate-like flame-retardant board, the Total Heat Release (THR) value was 2.9 (MJ/m2) for 10 min, showing an effect of reducing the THR value by 36.3 (MJ/m2) compared to the THR value of 39.2 (MJ/m2) of the specimen made using only paper. In addition, the toxicity index of the flame-retardant board was checked through the NES (Naval Engineering Standards)-713 test. As a result, the test specimen showed a toxicity index of 0.7, which is 2.4 lower than the toxicity index of 3.1 of MDF, which is utilized as a conventional building material. Based on the results of this study, the cellulose fire-retardant board showed the effect of reducing the heat release rate and toxicity index of building materials in a building fire, which reduces the risk of rapid heat spread and smoke toxicity. This has the potential to improve the evacuation time (A-SET) of evacuees in fires. It is also important to show that recycling waste paper and utilizing it as the main material for building materials can be an alternative in terms of sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electrical installations are a significant component of fire load inside a building, although they are often neglected in the overall fire safety analysis and are not subjected to any kind of fire safety evaluation of a building. A typical electrical installation unconnected to the mains was experimentally studied using a single burning item (SBI) test apparatus, fixed to two types of popular non-combustible or combustible (wooden-based) backgrounds simulating a typical building internal wall or ceiling. The semi-real scale test showed that poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) cable, commonly used in installations in buildings in Europe and used in SBI tests, showed high fire properties related to heat release, smoke production and flame spread to other interior elements. The results of the electrical circuit connected to the main measurements carried out showed a significant impact of the heating effect towards the uncovered surface socket, causing the possibility of easy ignition inside the installation. In conclusion, it was found that even a relatively simple and short section of electrical installation resulted in a significant increase in the heat release rate and smoke generation parameters, obtained during the SBI tests, and as a consequence a reduction of one or two reaction to fire euroclasses of construction materials for internal walls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The performance gap between the design and the as-built energy performance of buildings is considered a significant risk that may compromise the efforts on meeting the carbon reduction targets set by governments in Europe. The relative importance of irregularities or defects within building walls is more prominent when the thermal insulation level increases. It is thus necessary to quantify the global thermal insulation level of building walls (i.e., including thermal bridges). Classical contact measurement methods only allow local measurements and would thus require the use of a high number of sensors which would limit their applicability. Besides, the presence of thermal bridges prevents the use of contact heat flux measurements because of the 2D or 3D nature of the associated heat transfers through the building walls. To overcome these limitations, the present study proposes an alternative approach consisting in measuring the heat flux on one location and extrapolating its value on the whole building wall through the measurement of the total heat transfer coefficient. Therefore, we developed and/or further improved five different in situ measurement methods of the total heat transfer coefficient on building walls. The measurement methods were thoroughly tested indoor thanks to lab-scale experiments carried out both in steady-state and transient regimes. The results obtained demonstrated the accuracy and the robustness of the proposed methods, as well as their intrinsic limitations. These in situ methods can be used to assess the heat losses on a whole building wall, including the contribution of thermal bridges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]