Ceramic tiles as sustainable, functional and insulating materials to mitigate fire damage

Owing to their lower costs and functional properties, the construction industry has been increasingly adopting synthetic organic polymer (SOP) materials into linings, interiors and non-load bearing structural components. While SOPs have favourable properties and characteristics at ambient conditions, the same materials often perform poorly under moderate-to-elevated temperatures such as that arising from a building fire. In fact, most SOPs tend to combust and decompose at elevated temperatures which, unlike traditional building materials such as concrete and ceramic tiles, is proven to not only contribute to the fire but also to adversely affect evacuation and firefighting operations. From a fire engineering perspective, this paper tests a hypothesis in which ceramic tiles (CTs) are expected to outperform SOPs and commonly used insulations as finishing and lining materials under fire conditions. As such, this study showcases a thorough comparison between the behaviour of commonly available CTs, SOPs and insulations in temperatures ranging between 25 and 1000°C. Then, this paper analyses published CT models to derive temperature-dependent material models with the aid of machine learning (ML). Findings of this work advocate the use of CTs as favourable finishing and interior lining materials to enable realising improved structural fire performance and fire response managements, as opposed to SOPs, composites or insulations. The outcome of this work is expected to be of interest to architects, first responders, building officials, fire and structural engineers.