Fire, Foams and Furniture

Placing the words Fire, Foams and Furniture together, may create a picture of rapidly burning high temperature fires with dense smoke. This is almost the traditional view of furniture containing polyurethane foams and while it is recognised that such furniture does exist, it must be emphasised that many items of furniture containing polyurethane foam have excellent fire behaviour. Foams used in furniture can be the flexible polyether foams used for upholstery but the latter could also comprise other materials, e.g. polyester fibre mats, waddings, rubber latex foam, etc. Foams may also be found as flexible fire barrier materials and also as rigid structural elements. The outer layer of upholstered furniture is almost invariably a fabric. Many fabrics exist; in conjunction with the sub-structure of the upholstery they determine the ignitability and initial burning characteristics of the furniture. By carefully selecting materials and considering the interactions of materials and design, it is possible to build furniture which will resist large ignition sources even when vandalised Such performance demands inevitably lead to compromises and limitations to the choice of fabrics or designs and to the comfort (e.g. soft or hard) of the furniture. They may also probably lead to increase in costs. Modern technology has produced materials which will, in selected designs, give extremely good fire behaviour. It is the responsibility of the specifiers and purchasers to decide the level of performance required in a particular end-use environment and thereby create a market for such products.