China 
Africa 
Explore chapters and articles related to this topic
Applied Chemistry and Physics
Published in Robert A. Burke, Applied Chemistry and Physics, 2020
Some plastics may exhibit unusual burning characteristics compared to building materials made from natural polymers such as wood. Plastics as a group generally have higher ignition temperatures than wood and other cellulose-building products. Plastics have been reported to have very high flame spread characteristics, as high as 2 ft/s, or 10 times that of wood on the surface. Vinyl, when tested in a solid form in the laboratory, has been shown to burn slowly. However, when in the form of a thin coating on wall coverings, it spreads rapidly contributing to flame spread. Nylon has a tendency to self-extinguish when a flame is removed. When nylon is in the form of carpet fiber under certain conditions, it burns with great enthusiasm. Polyurethane foam that has not been treated with a flame retardant is very flammable. It is used as an insulating material in construction and burns with a very smoky flame. Because of its burning characteristics, it has contributed to rapid flame spread in several fatal fires. Burning of plastics may produce large quantities of thick, black smoke. When chemicals are added to retard burning, they may actually expand the amount of smoke that is produced. Because of their ability to melt and run, plastics can spread fires in ways that could mislead fire investigators. When skylights and light fixture diffusers are ignited by high ceiling temperatures, they may soften and sag. They can fall into combustible materials below and start fires in several isolated locations. This could lead an investigator to suspect an incendiary fire when in fact it was not.
The Challenging Role of the Flight Attendant
Published in Harry W. Orlady, Linda M. Orlady, John K. Lauber, Human Factors in Multi-Crew Flight Operations, 2017
Harry W. Orlady, Linda M. Orlady, John K. Lauber
A major hazard in airplane cabins is the toxic fumes formed when any polyurethane foam material burns. This foam material is used for many purposes in the cabin. The flight deck crew has protective smoke masks, but these are seldom available in the cabin. Additionally, the cockpit crew is specifically trained in the use of smoke masks and is kept familiar with their use in mandatory simulator training exercises. Such training and equipment is not available to passengers. Another device that has become a requirement in recent years is a protective breathing equipment device or PBE. The PBE is slipped over one’s head, is relatively airtight and contains a chemical oxygen generator that provides about 15 minutes of oxygen. A typical airplane would have one PBE in the flight deck and two in the cabin. At one time, some aviation safety consumer advocate groups recommended, somewhat unrealistically, that each passenger should carry their own PBE in case of an emergency involving toxic smoke.
A study of the effect of [BPy]PF6 as a flame retardant property
Published in Dawei Zheng, Industrial Engineering and Manufacturing Technology, 2015
Polyurethane foam is the most effective insulation material of all isocyanate-based foams. Soft foam and rigid foam are extremely flammable. In the case of fire, they are easily ignited and flames spread rapidly with a large number of toxic fumes being produced. Until recently, the application of rigid polyurethane foam was limited strictly because of its flammability and very strict fire codes were published in transport facilities and wall insulation. For all these reasons, improved fire retardant performance can greatly extend the application of polyurethane foam in the industrial field [1-3]. There are numerous reported literatures about the methods of polyurethane flame retardants. The main flame retardants commonly used were additive flame retardants and reactive flame retardants. The compounds added were the elements: halogen, phosphorus, and antimony etc. These were the most researched additive flame retardants to polyurethane flame [4-5].
Experimental investigation of quasistatic penetration tests on honeycomb sandwich panels filled with polymer foam
Published in Mechanics of Advanced Materials and Structures, 2020
Fatemeh Hassanpour Roudbeneh, Gholamhossein Liaghat, Hadi Sabouri, Homayoun Hadavinia
The mentioned articles are just a small part of the existed experimental and numerical studies which explores the behavior of sandwich panel structures under different loading conditions. This is just because of the vast number of various sandwich panels, different loading conditions, and especially the importance of understanding these structures’ behavior for many industrial applications. It is worth mentioning that in all previous studies related to the penetration test, the core is built of foams or honeycombs alone. However, for increasing the resistance of the honeycomb core, some specific lightweight materials could be used to fill them such as different kinds of foams [25–27]. Among them, flexible polyurethane foam is widely utilized in numerous applications, including civil engineering, automotive, packaging, and personal protection, and so on because of its low cost, low weight, admirable performance in thermal insulation, acoustic absorption, and energy management [28–31].
Axial crushing analysis of polyurethane foam-filled combined thin-walled structures: experimental and numerical analysis
Published in International Journal of Crashworthiness, 2019
Ali Ghamarian, Sajad Azarakhsh
The cylindrical tubes with shallow spherical caps were fabricated from aluminum plates using spinning process. The circular blanks were cut from commercial aluminum plates with thickness of 1 mm and stretched over the surface of a rotating die. The shallow spherical thickness is the same as the blank thickness, while there is some thickness gradient on cylindrical wall due to stretching the blanks over the die surface. The edge of the formed tubes at the open side was trimmed at the end of forming process by moving the cutting tool normal to the rotation axis of sample. Some samples were filled with polyurethane foam which is formed by reacting a polyol with a polymeric isocyanate. The density of the selected polyurethane foam is 65 kg/m3 after the chemical reaction between homogenised mixtures of two components. Table 1 shows the average dimensions of hollow and foam-filled cylindrical tubes with shallow spherical caps including the cylindrical length, cylindrical and spherical radius and tube wall thickness. The wall thickness of cylindrical surface is denoted by t1 and t2 measured at the close and open edges of the cylindrical wall, respectively.
Comparative structural performance of composite filled tubes
Published in International Journal for Computational Methods in Engineering Science and Mechanics, 2019
M. Padmaja, V.V.V.S. Murty, N.V. Ramana Rao
It is worth to mention here that there are many types of foams used as infill material. Some examples are, metallic foams such as aluminium foam, and polymeric foams such as polystyrene foam, PVC foam and polyurethane foam. Among those, polyurethane foam or PU foam is quite interesting as it is cheap and widely used in some engineering applications such as container, insulator or wire encasement in some parts of vehicle. Zhang [5] found that the interaction between PU foam surface and tube wall, increases the total energy absorption of the member. Polyurethane foam can be produced by mixing together of two chemicals, namely isocyanate and polyol. Both substances are mixed in a ratio of 1:1 in liquid form. As a result, the volume of foam increases up to 27 times. Normally, the density of foam varies from 30 to 40 kg/m3. The thermal conductivity is low, and that makes the rigid polyurethane foam an excellent insulator. Polyurethane is characterised by huge amount of air bubbles foaming in to closed cells which trap air inside. It is resistant to impact and weather of all seasons. The mechanical properties of the PU foam are tested under axial compression loading. Before compression test, the polyurethane foam is formed in to cubic shape with about 50 mm ×50 mm ×50 mm and then tested under uniaxial compression at constant speed of 5 mm/min. Afterwards the true stress and corresponding plastic strain are calculated from the curve based on experimental data, in order to specify the elastic and plastic deformation characteristics, to meet the requirement of FEM simulation. In present study, the PU foam properties are considered as, density 150 kg/m3, modulus of elasticity 158.50 MPa, yield stress 6.34 MPa and Poisson’s ratio 0.33.