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The fire safety of the built environment is immensely important to everyone - employers, designers, architects, fire authorities, the construction industry at large and, of course, the general public - people who inhabit buildings.
To understand more about Fire, click here.
In case of fire, the choice of insulation material can become a vital issue in terms of casualties, material or environmental damage. Roxul insulation is non-combustible and withstands more than 1000°C. It can act as a fire barrier. Combustible insulation on the other hand can fuel the fire and cause it to spread. Some of the most widely used combustible insulation materials are oil-based foamed plastics (eg. polystyrene, polyurethane or polyisocyanurate) and organic materials (eg. shredded paper/cellulose).
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Fire Curve |
Time is vital for fire fighters. It is essential that a building does not contain many combustible building materials but consists of fire-resistant materials, which can delay the spread of fire and provide many vital extra minutes to save people and property. Roxul insulation materials are based on rock and cannot burn. The stone wool insulation acts as a fire barrier that resists temperatures above 1,000°C.
Standard fire curve (ISO 834) |
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Building fire protection for the future |
The development and growth of fire depends upon a number of factors including the nature and distribution of the contents, the air supply, the thermal properties of the enclosure of the construction works, the fire and smoke control systems, and the fire protection system efficacy.
Passive and Active Fire Protection System both perform different but equally important roles in fire protection of buildings. Read more here.
The European Union had developed a classification system for both the ‘reaction to fire‘ and ‘resistance to fire’ performance of construction products. These provide a common method for comparing the performance of products in fire across the European Union.
Reaction to fire
The purpose of Reaction to fire testing is to determine whether a material fuels a fire. The EU Reaction to fire evaluation criteria are the material's ignitability, rate of heat release, rate of spread of flame, rate of smoke production, toxic gases, flaming droplets/particles and/or a combination of these safety aspects.
Most building products are ranked in one of 7 Euroclasses for their reaction to fire, in standard EN test conditions.
| Class | Reaction to fire | Flashover | | A1 | No contribution to a fire / non-combustible | No flash-over | | A2 | No contribution to a fire / non-combustible | No flash-over | | B | Very limited contribution to a fire | No flash-over | | C | Limited - but some - contribution to a fire | Flash-over risk | | D | Not negligible contribution to a fire | Flash-over risk | | E | Poor fire reaction properties | Flash-over risk | | F | No performance determined - no data available | Flash-over risk |
Resistance to fire
Fire resistance indicates how well a building component - for a stated period of time - can hold back the fire and prevent it from penetrating from one room to another. Fire resistance is an extremely important characteristic, for instance for a wall element separating two hotel rooms or a ventilation duct penetrating a firewall.
| The basic criteria used to characterise the fire resistance of a product are: | | R load bearing capacity (to provide strength and stability of the building) | | E integrity (to keep the element intact) | I insulation (to keep the temperature low on the unexposed side of the element,
expressed in minutes) |
A product fulfilling all these basic criteria for 45 minutes will be classified REI 45.
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