Fire Behavior of Upholstered Furniture and Mattresses (Safety, Health & Hygiene)

In the United States alone, deaths due to furniture and bed fires still rank as the top-most category of fire losses. The flammability of upholstered furniture is a major concern of engineers and others across a wide swath of organizations. This book was written to provide its audience with the science and engineering need to better understand the combustibility of the products they manufacture, purchase, and try to extinguish. Beginning with a brief overview of materials, safety design and standards, the text covers topics such as flame ignition, spread, toxic gases, heat release rate (HRR), test methods, fire hazard analysis, and selected regulations in the US, UK, and EU. The handbook provides ready information on the fire and chemical reactivity of commonly used chemicals. Its purpose is to provide basic information important to the safe handling of chemicals and to help provide guidance in responding to a hazardous materials incident, in particular, incidents involving reactive chemicals and materials posing fire and explosion hazards. The volume has been written for chemical handling specialists, first responders to hazardous materials incidents, and firefighters. The basic definition used for a hazard materials incident is any situation that may potentially lead to catastrophic fire or explosion, and or human exposed to a toxic chemical. This situation may result from a spill of a hazardous material, a leak from a storage vessel or shipping container, or the mixing of incompatible chemicals whereby a chemical reaction could occur resulting in the release of energy and generation of toxic and perhaps flammable by-products. The volume provides chemical specific information, providing the reader with rigorous information on the chemical of interest.This book is a compendium of chemical specific fire and chemical reactivity data and information. More than 1,000 chemicals have been researched and organized into a reference handbook for fire specialists, chemical handling specialists, and plant safety engineers. The specific information provided for chemicals includes the flammability characteristics, recommended fire extinguishing practices, fire extinguishing agents not to be used, behavior in fires, burning characteristics, chemical reactivity with regard to water and common materials, incompatible chemical mixtures, containment and neutralization methods for spills. This reference book has been designed as a data bank for the hazardous materials handling specialist and industrial safety managers dealing with large chemical inventories. It is intended to be used by fire and loss prevention specialists and as a basis for developing procedures for safe storing and handling of chemicals. The authors have included an extensive physical properties section on chemicals, with information most pertinent to fire response situations. This handbook provides ready information on the fire and chemical reactivity of commonly used chemicals. Its purpose is to provide basic information important to the safe handling of chemicals and to help provide guidance in responding to a hazardous materials incident, in particular, incidents involving reactive chemicals and materials posing fire and explosion hazards. This volume has been written for chemical handling specialists, first responders to hazardous materials incidents, and firefighters. The basic definition used for a hazard materials incident is any situation that may potentially lead to catastrophic fire or explosion, and or human exposure to a toxic chemical. This situation may result from a spill of a hazardous material, a leak from a storage vessel or shipping container, or the mixing of incompatible chemicals whereby a chemical reaction could occur resulting in the release of energy and generation of toxic and perhaps flammable by-products The flammability of upholstered furniture is a major concern to engineers and others across a wide swath of organizations. This book was written to provide its audience with the science and engineering needed to better understand the combustibility of the products they manufacture, purchase, and try to extinguish. It addresses the science and engineering information needs of public and private sector fire technology personnel, including fire service students and officers, fire investigators, fire protection engineers, government officials; textile, chemical, and furniture industry personnel, or institutional furniture purchasers FIRE BEHAVIOR OFUPHOLSTERED FURNITUREAND MATTRESSES......Page 2 Preface......Page 5 Contents......Page 8 1 Introduction......Page 13 2 Fundamentals......Page 30 3 Test Methods, Standardsand Regulations......Page 95 4 Ignition Sources......Page 175 5 Effects of Test Apparatusand of Test Scale......Page 199 6 Upholstered Item DesignEngineering......Page 219 7 Modeling......Page 332 8 Fire Hazard Analysis......Page 358 9 Conclusions......Page 370 Exercises and Solutions......Page 372 Abbreviations......Page 389 References......Page 391 Index......Page 435