CompositesWorld

SEP 2017

CompositesWorld

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The Grenfell Tower fire, a cautionary tale for high-rise cladding manufacturers, plus a CW Talks segment with James Austin, and a tale of progress toward a visionary form of composites-aided maglev transportation called the Hyperloop. CONSTRUCTION SEPTEMBER 2017 16 CompositesWorld TRENDS Grenfell Tower fire highlights dangers of untested façade assemblies CW has published numerous stories over the past several years touting the benefits of fiber-reinforced polymers (FRP) for architectural applications. Each article stressed that because FRP is new on the scene, passing the multiple required tests for fire safety was of paramount importance for acceptance. So when some news reports mentioned "composite laminates" in reference to the causes of the devastating and deadly fire in a residential high-rise tower in London on June 14, CW believed it was necessary to clarify that the tragedy did not involve composite materials as defined by CompositesWorld magazine, our readers and most composites suppliers. The Grenfell Tower fire consumed, instead, decorative architectural cladding panels sold as Reynobond PE, part of a "rainscreen" exterior instal- lation made of thin aluminum skins over an unreinforced thermoplastic core, manufactured by Arconic (New York, NY, US, the successor company to Alcoa Inc.). Media reports speculate that a refrigerator placed close to an exterior wall might have been the fire source, and that the rainscreen air gap, designed to keep rain out of the building, instead, acted as a chimney, funneling the flames that burned the decorative panels as well as the underlying polyisocyanurate (PIR) rigid thermal insula- tion. Most importantly, the cladding's laminate wasn't fire retardant. Published media reports (including from The New York Times on June 24) say that British regulators appar- ently did not require fire testing to evaluate its flammabil- ity in as-installed conditions. US regulators, by contrast, don't permit rainscreen cladding systems involving plastic above the height of a fireman's ladder (about four stories), unless the cladding passes the National Fire Protection Assn.'s (NFPA) 285 full-scale assembly test, as well as the ASTM E 84 "Standard Test Method for Surface Burning Characteristics of Building Materials" and other tests, for compliance with US building codes. Put into proper context, the Grenfell Tower fire can be labeled neither a shocking surprise to the British regulatory community nor an isolated incident. It was the worst, but, in fact, only the latest in a succession of external cladding fires over the past 10 years. Worse, Great Britain has, accord- ing to published stories, as many as 87 other high-rise flats like Grenfell Tower and, possibly, as many as 30,000 other buildings of varying heights, covered with the same or similar cladding. There is good evidence that such cladding, when not properly fire-rated, can spread fire externally on a building, both on the external cladding surface and within the cladding assembly, says Dr. Nicholas Dempsey, professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute's (Worcester, MA, US) Fire Protection Engineering department. Our point? For one, the composites industry isn't part of the problem but could be part of the solution. Architectural composites supplier Acell Industries Ltd. (Dublin, Ireland), for one, says it has a ready solution for Grenfell-like fire risk: Remove the cladding, remove the underlying insulation, and wrap it with Acell's fire-resistant phenolic AMC (Acell Molding Compound) foam panels, which Acell claims would protect the insulation from any fire within the decorative cladding. As CW editorial offerings have indicated over the past half decade, there are undoubtedly other fixes, including fire-rated composite cladding systems, that our industry could supply. The key point, however, is that composites designers and manufacturers must learn from the experience of others. The composites industry has a responsibility to communi- cate with customers exactly what their materials can do in actual, as-installed situations, using actual fabrication methods. How fire resistant they are? Do they comply with International Code Council (ICC) International Building Code (IBC), Chapter 26 (Plastic) codes? What fire tests can they pass? These building codes, in fact, require suppliers to label products with this information so that architects and builders know with certainty what they're getting, says architectural composites champion Bill Kreysler of Kreysler & Assoc. Inc. (American Canyon, CA, US). We certainly don't want to see a disaster of Grenfell Tower-scale happening to a building clad with fiber-reinforced composites. Source | Dreamstime

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