Gypsum plasterboards are widely used for compartmentation and for retarding the spread of fire in buildings. Although numerous heat transfer studies have been conducted, literature indicates there are extensive differences in the thermal properties used in these studies. Comprehensive experimental and numerical analyses have been conducted to elucidate the leading factor in the ablation of a gypsum board system when it is exposed to the standard fire resistance test. A methodology based on both simultaneous thermal analysis and computational modelling is proposed to understand the behaviour of a gypsum plasterboard when the boundary temperature increases quickly as one side of the wall is subjected to the standard ISO 834. Finally, four different wall assemblies made of a commercial fireproof plasterboard system are exposed to the standard test. The temperature on the unexposed face is examined to validate the computational model of the plasterboard. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Electrical cables must fulfil the Construction Product Regulation (CPR) by testing them according to EN 50,399. Nevertheless, an unfordable trial and error procedure could stem from the definition of new cables. To achieve a better understanding of fire behavior of cables, researchers have been using techniques such as bench and reduced scale tests and computational fire models result in a way to minimize trial and error process. The present work proposes the combination of bench scale tests, using cone calorimeters and fire simulation modeling. In a first step, the thermal characterization of the cable parts is carried out, and then, in a second step, use these data to model complete cable samples in cone calorimeter tests. The simulations are compared with experimental data of two already rated cables. This process is intended to discard erroneous configurations, which display in bench scale signs of misbehavior compared with rated cables. This would avoid the manufacture of the complete cable if the results do not fulfill the requirements, and eventually, proceed to its production and test in full-scale when they do. This work has been carried out with two multi-core cables and the materials they were made of, and the results showed: a) the inverse modeling process to characterize materials parts obtained a fairly accurate approach, with small inaccuracies in the peaks of the curves; b) two simulation models (simple and detailed) were able to reproduce in general terms the heat release rate curve; however, they released more energy than experimental tests and some discrepancies in the peaks were observed. Despite its simplicity, simple model obtained results fairly close to the experimental curves and took less time to simulate.

In a fire, the polymer combustion occurs when gaseous fuels react with oxygen. The heating of a material could force the release of gaseous fuels during thermal decomposition and pyrolysis. The rate of pyrolysis to define the gaseous fuels is usually interpreted by means of the Arrhenius expression and a reaction model expression, which are characterized by an activation energy, a pre-exponential factor, and a reaction order value. Many methods are available for determining kinetic parameters from thermogravimetric experimental data. However, the most challenging issue is achieving an adequate balance between accuracy and simplicity. This work proposes a direct method for determining the kinetic parameters with only a thermogravimetric experiment at a single heating rate. The method was validated with six polymers, and the results were compared with those from similar procedures, such as the Lyon method and generalized direct method. The results achieved using the simpler approach of the proposed method show a high level of accuracy.