Is the Cone Calorimeter Useful in Assessing Furniture Composite Behavior by the California Technical Bulletin 133 Test?

The California Technical Bulletin 133 (TB 133) test method is being used to regulate the fire performance of seating furniture in public buildings in some states. Such regulations in the marketplace have brought together a coalition of textile, fabric and furniture manufacturers to concentrate their efforts on trying to better understand combi nations of foam, fabric, barrier and styling features from the standpoint of fire perfor mance. Chemical suppliers to the polyurethane flexible foam industry are working towards de veloping correlations between bench scale test methods and the full scale California TB 133. A collection of eight upholstery fabrics, five interliner barrier fabrics and a fire retar dant foam were selected by the coalition as materials representative of contract furniture markets today. Foam/fabric composites which had been tested using the TB 133 procedure were tested in our laboratory using the Cone Calorimeter by the ASTM E 1354 test method. Results indicated that composite performance was dependent on the type of fabric and barrier used. The overall performance of the fabrics and barriers could be ranked similarly by both the California TB 133 and by the ASTM E 1354 test methods. Even though differences in combustion characteristics were noted between the two test methods, we were able to use criteria based on heat release values and correlate up to 75 % of the passes and failures obtained by TB 133 test criteria. The test worked better for composites that performed either very well or very poorly by TB 133. Test results reported in this paper are used to measure and describe the properties of materials, products, or assemblies in response to heat and flame under controlled labora tory conditions and must not be used to describe, appraise or predict the fire hazard or fire risk of materials, products, or assemblies under actual fire conditions. Test results may be used only as part of an overall fire risk assessment that takes into ac count all of the factors pertinent to the fire hazard of a particular material in a specific end use. Correlations between bench scale tests and full scale tests may help in narrowing the field of potential material candidates. However, bench scale tests cannot assess the effect of design features. Therefore, full scale testing remains necessary before final acceptance of any furniture .