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Wood and wood-based products are abundantly used, especially in structural applications, due to the impetus for sustainable development. The present work helps highlight the fire performance of plywood, one of the most used wood-based laminated structural components, under three different heat fluxes of 35 kW/m2, 50 kW/m2, and 65 kW/m2. The effects on the various fire reaction properties, namely, time to ignition, heat release rate, peak heat release rate, time to peak heat release rate, time to flameout, total burn time, and mass loss, were observed and reported. The times to ignition (42.2% and 35.4%), peak heat release rate (27.7% and 18.9%), flameout (22.2% and 28.6%), burn time (10.6% and 16.1%), and residual mass (25% and 53.3%) were reduced with the increase in heat flux from 35 kW/m2 to 65 kW/m2, respectively, whereas the peak heat release (21.7% and 2.4%) and ignition temperature (6.5% and 6.6%) were observed to increase. The vertical burning test (UL-94) illustrated the plywood samples to have a V-1 rating, with self-extinguishing capabilities. A numerical predictive model has also been developed based on the Fire Dynamics Simulator to predict the time to ignition, time to flameout, and heat release rate trend along with the peak heat release rate—it is shown to have good agreement with the experimental results, with an average correlation coefficient of 0.87. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural fibres have been used as fibre reinforcements in composites as they offer eco-friendly and economic advantages, but their susceptibility to deterioration when exposed to heat and flames has limited their practical application in fibre-reinforced polymeric composites. Fire-reaction properties have been explored in reasonable detail for plant fibres, but a gap exists in the understanding of animal fibre-reinforced composites. Understanding the thermal and fire reactions of these keratin-rich animal fibres is crucial for material selection and advancing composite product development. The current paper critically discusses the existing research landscape and suggests future research directions. The use of keratinous fibres in composites can definitely improve their thermal stability and fire performance, but it also appears to adversely affect the composite's mechanical performance. The main part of this paper focuses on the flame-retardant treatment of keratinous fibres and polymer composites, and their behaviour under fire conditions. The final part of this paper includes a brief look at the environmental impact of the treatment methods; the overall processing of keratinous fibre-reinforced composites is also presented to gain further insight. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses two major issues: (i) understanding the influence of the solvent used for fibre processing to obtain flame-retardant chicken feathers, and (ii) establishing the importance of the fibre–matrix blending temperature before composite manufacturing. Three temperature profiles for the extrusion die have been taken into consideration: a low-temperature profile (40 °C) (LT-FRCF), a medium-temperature profile (120 °C) (MT-FRCF), and a high-temperature profile (200 °C) (HT-FRCF). Due to better mixing, the tensile strengths for the medium- and high-temperature profile specimens improved by approximately 44% and 83%, respectively. The cone calorimeter results for the samples with water as the solvent for the feather modification showed a 22% reduction in the peak heat release rate compared to those of the samples with ethanol as the fibre treatment solvent, inferring the importance of the solvent used for the processing and making the process more sustainable with a lower water footprint. The research findings provide clear evidence of how the mixing (extrusion) temperature and choice of solvent for modifying chicken feather fibres affect the composites' mechanical and flame-retardant properties. These insights contribute to our understanding of how keratinous fibres can effectively serve as flame-retardant reinforcements in polymeric composites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]