Development of Flame Spread Prevention Systems for Combustible Composite Panels Using Water Screen Technology

Abstract

Composite panels are designed to be fabricated by adding Styrofoam, glass wool, and urethane into steel plates before integration with adhesive materials. As these panels exhibit good workability, cost efficiency, and heat insulation performance, they are widely used as building materials for plant or storage facilities. However, fire safety still needs to be addressed, because these panels can potentially cause large fires. As firewater cannot easily penetrate the material inside the panel, extinguishing any fires caused is difficult. Furthermore, the imperfect combustion of the core material tends to generate a large volume of toxic gas, resulting in serious damage to human life. In addition, the high risk of collapse makes fire-fighting activities more difficult. Flame spread prevention systems optimized for composite panels have been developed for more effective fire suppression based on accumulative research outcomes obtained thus far. Related test methods were reviewed before successfully demonstrating the performance of the developed systems. The existing composite panel structure—wherein the developed system was not applied-burned out after 5 min; however, when the developed system was applied to the composite panels, the structure was covered in soot after 15 min. The structure was designed by applying the developed system to a virtual factory building, and the construction standard was reviewed.