Abstract

The fire safety effect of using fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) as the primary construction material in a fishing research vessel was studied by fire simulations. The effect of FRP structures on fire development was assessed by comparing the simulated gas temperatures and potential heat releases with FRP and steel structures. The structural integrity of FRP structures was assessed using simulated temperatures of the structures as indicators of integrity. The effect of protective mineral wool and intumescent coating layers was also quantified. The results showed that despite the protection, the structural integrity of FRP bulkheads could be compromised in fire conditions. Mineral wool was found to be better protection than the intumescent coating: it can either prevent or postpone the pyrolysis of the FRP bulkhead, depending on the fire exposure.

Abstract

The behavior of the cable jacket in fire characterized by the tendency to melt and drip constitutes a major source of fire hazard. The reason is that the melted material may convey the flame from one point to another, expanding fire and contributing to the fire load. In this article, the capability of a new computational strategy based on the particle finite element method for simulating a bench-scale cables burning test is analyzed. The use bench-scale test has been previously used to simulate the full-scale test described in EN 50399. As the air effect is neglected, a simple combustion model is included. The samples selected are two cables consisting of a copper core and differently flame retarded thermoplastic polyurethane sheets. The key modeling parameters were determined from different literature sources as well as experimentally. During the experiment, the specimen was burned under the test set-up condition recording the process and measuring the temperature evolution by means of three thermocouples. Next, the test was reproduced numerically and compared with a real fire test. The numerical results show that the particle finite element method can accurately predict the evolution of the temperature and the melting of the jacket.