Fire curtains: models of heat transfer in composite materials

The object of research is samples of multilayer protective fabrics for transformable fire barriers installed in buildings and structures to limit the spread of flame, heat flow, and smoke. The work aims to obtain the structure of a transformable fire curtain with fire resistance limits of E60 (loss of integrity) and I30 (loss of thermal insulating capacity). Method. The mathematical simulation method in the software package (SP) ELCUT (Russia), which implements the finite element method, was used to get the temperature distribution along the cross-section of the fire curtain. An experimental study was conducted on a small furnace to confirm the simulation results. Results. Based on the simulation results of eight samples of fire curtains, two promising fabrics were selected that demonstrate a fire resistance limit in terms of loss of thermal insulating capacity (I) of 30 minutes. In small-scale tests, it was found that the best result was the fire curtain containing glass fiber, intumescent mesh, and foil material. The canvas consisting of a single layer of aerogel showed the worst results regarding loss of integrity (E). The simulation results were confirmed by small-scale furnace tests with no more than 10% convergence.