Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

The use of calculation methods for verifying the fire resistance of insulated metal (steel or aluminum) structures requires data on the thermal properties of fire protection materials. A testing methodology has been developed within CEN TC 127 "fire in buildings" and one of the possible assessment methods provides a method for deriving the thermal conductivity of protection materials from fire test results performed on insulated sections. To check the accuracy of this assessment method, a theoretical study has been carried out using products with well-defined material properties. It was found that the thermal conductivity obtained by this assessment method is slightly different from the "measured" values, and a better consistency between calculated and experimental data could be reached by improving the definition of the section factor and using a corrected thickness for fire protection materials.