Parameter estimation approach to the thermal characterization of intumescent fire retardant paints

[摘要] Intumescent paints are widely used as passive fire retardant materials in the building sector. They swell on heating to form a highly insulating char, protecting steel members. Intumescent coatings for use in buildings are typically certified according to the standard cellulosic fire resistance test. This test is expensive, often non-representative of realistic fire conditions, and not enough versatile to gather detailed performance information on the response of reactive coatings. A promising approach, that could offer a helpful tool to the engineering community involved in fire safety, is found in the modelling of the behaviour of the intumescent coating. Under this approach, the knowledge of the equivalent thermal conductivity of the intumescent material is a fundamental issue, since it represents the main parameter that allows predicting the thermal protecting capability of the layer. The purpose of this paper is to optimize an estimation procedure intended to the restoration of the equivalent thermal conductivity of intumescent layers. The thermal stress is activated by the action of a cone calorimetric apparatus, while the estimation procedure is based on the inverse heat conduction problem approach under steady state assumption, where the temperature values measured at some locations inside the layer during the expansion process are used as input known data. This procedure was successfully applied to steel samples protected with an intumescent paint; the estimated equivalent thermal conductivity of the layer results to temperature dependent while the initial thickness of the paint does not seem to have a great effect.

[发布机构] Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Parma, Parco Area delle Scienze 181/A, Parma; 43124, Italy^1;National Research Council of Italy (CNR), Trees and Timber Institute, Fire Lab., Via Biasi, 75, San Michele all'Adige; 38010, Italy^2

[效力级别] 力学 [学科分类] 力学，机械学

[关键词] Engineering community;Equivalent thermal conductivities;Estimation procedures;Fire resistance test;Fire-retardant materials;Inverse heat conduction problem;Temperature dependent;Thermal characterization