Extensive review of fire-retardant wood composites researches
IRG/WP 09-40471
Zhilin Chen, Zhiyong Cai, Feng Fu
The increased demand for public safety has led to greater interest in fire retardant materials in the recently years. Legislation relating to safety in the home, in work locations, on transport facilities and in public places continues to produce new regulation. There is average 524 thousand structure fires occurred every year in US, 3757 civilian in death, about 20 thousand civilian in juries, direct dollar loss is more than 10 billon. The fire damage of US is large because US’s wood structural building more than that of China, but increased use of composite wood products in China, which improve wood utilization and provide markets for small-diameter materials, can potentially increase the risk of property damage and loss of life in fires, therefore, protecting home and business from fire is a critical facing all over the world. Fire safety involves prevention, containment, detection, and evacuation. It is basically for fire prevention to prevent the ignition of combustible materials by controlling either the source of heat or the combustible materials. Statutory requirements pertaining to fire safety are specified in the building code and fire code, which includes material requirements such as combustibility, flame spread, and fire endurance, and building requirements such as area and height limitations, firestops, and draftstops, doors and other exits, automatic sprinklers, and fire detectors.
The paper discussed the Damage in fire and cost of protection in US, Thermally degradation and fire performance of wood, Chemicals of fire-retardant wood, Flame-Retardant Treatment of wood and composites, the mechanic properties and loss in strength of treated wood and composite, fire properties of treated wood and composite, the standards about fire retardant, developing of Fire Retardant Wood Composites.
Keywords: fire retardant, wood-based composites, WPC, environment