Herein, we describe a reduced‐scale test (“Cube” test), measuring the fire performance of specimens including a fire barrier (FB) and a flammable core material, which acts as the main fuel load. The specimen is intended to reproduce a cross‐section of a composite product where heat/mass transfer occurs primarily in a direction perpendicular to the FB. The Cube test procedure and benefits are discussed in this work by adopting residential upholstery furniture as an exemplary study. One flexible polyurethane foam, one polypropylene cover fabric, and 10 commercially available FBs were selected. They were used to compare the fire performance of FBs, measured in terms of peak of heat release rate, in the ASTM E1474‐14 standard test and the newly developed Cube test. Edge effects severely affected the performance of FBs in the ASTM E1474‐14 standard test but not in the Cube test. Furthermore, appropriate test conditions were determined in the Cube test to measure the so‐called “wetting point,” that is, the time and value of heat release rate measured when flammable liquid products were first observed on the bottom of the specimen. The relevance of the “wetting point” in terms of full‐scale fire performance and failure mechanism of FBs is discussed.

中文翻译：

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缩小规模的试验，以评估防火屏障对有芯复合材料燃烧燃烧的影响：室内装饰材料案例研究

在此，我们描述了一种缩小规模的测试（“立方体”测试），它测量了包括防火层（FB）和易燃芯材（作为主要燃料负荷）的样品的防火性能。该样品旨在复制复合产品的横截面，其中热量/质量传递主要发生在垂直于FB的方向上。在这项工作中，以住宅装饰家具为例，讨论了Cube测试程序和好处。选择了一种柔性聚氨酯泡沫，一种聚丙烯覆盖面料和10种市售FB。在ASTM E1474-14标准测试和新开发的Cube测试中，它们用于比较以散热率峰值衡量的FBs的防火性能。在ASTM E1474-14标准测试中，边缘效应严重影响了FB的性能，但在Cube测试中却没有。此外，在多维数据集测试中确定了适当的测试条件以测量所谓的“润湿点”，即首次在样品底部观察到易燃液体产品时测得的放热速率的时间和值。讨论了“润湿点”在FBs的全面防火性能和失效机理方面的相关性。