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DIN Standards Committee Materials Testing

Overview

This document (EN 13772:2011) has been prepared by Technical Committee CEN/TC 248 "Textiles and textile products", the secretariat of which is held by the BSI (United Kingdom). The responsible German Committee is Working Committee NA 062-05-43 AA "Brennverhalten von Textilien" ("Burning behaviour of textiles") of the Materials Testing Standards Committee (NMP) at DIN. The following amendments have been made with respect to DIN EN 13722:2003-05: a) normative references have been updated; b) clauses 8.1 and 8.2 have been revised; c) clause 11 has been moved into Annex A (informative). In order to assess the burning behaviour of curtains and drapes two test methods were established, EN 1101 for the measurement of ignitability (based on EN ISO 6940) and EN 1102 for the measurement of flame spread (based on EN ISO 6941). EN ISO 6941 measures the flame spread of vertically oriented specimens exposed to a defined small flame. This allows the flame spread properties of ignitable products to be determined. Nevertheless this test method is not suitable to assess products that do not ignite. The measurement of the length or area destroyed by the small flame is questionable as shown by round robin testing. For that reason, there is a risk that products which pass the small flame test, can still be ignited with a larger ignition source. The equipment used in EN ISO 6941 has therefore been modified by adding a radiator, which radiates on the lower part of the specimen in order to boost locally and temporarily the ignition of the specimen. The combination of this radiation and the small flame application simulates the action from a larger flaming source. With this combined ignition source some materials, not ignitable with the small flame, may ignite. Some of these will self extinguish, when the action from the ignition source has ceased, while others will selfpropagate. For this purpose, a European research project (CT 96-2057) was set up to establish a small scale test method for assessing the burning behaviour of curtains and drapes using a large ignition source. Reaction to fire parameters like smoke development, heat release and toxic components were not taken into account. The project involved eleven laboratories from nine European countries. In order to select the relevant characteristics of burning behaviour in terms of classification and to assess the repeatability and reproducibility, 15 samples of commercially available fabrics representative for the main product groups on the market were tested with the large ignition source test method. Most of them had a flame retardant treatment or coating. The material selection included standard and fire retardant polyester, cotton, modacryl, wool, chlorofibre and glass fibre and represented different structures and fibre blends. The occurrence of flaming debris, the severance of marker threads and the time to sever marker threads (first and third threads) were selected as representative parameter to assess the burning behaviour of the samples. Other burning behaviour characteristics such as after-flame and after-glow times did not bring any extra relevant information and were discarded. An inter-laboratory test was conducted in 1997 with ten laboratories, each testing 15 materials. Repeatability and reproducibility were assessed through statistical analysis. Consequently, some improvements were introduced in the method. Good agreement was also found with national test methods in use in various European countries or regions (France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Scandinavia and the United Kingdom). This European Standard specifies a method for the measurement of flame spread of vertically oriented textile fabrics intended for curtains and drapes in the form of single or multi-component (coated, quilted, multilayered, sandwich construction and similar combinations) fabrics using a large ignition source. A heat flux of a defined energy is applied to a specified area of the lower part of the backside of the vertical specimen. After a period of exposure (30 s), the small flame defined in EN ISO 6941 is applied for 10 s to a small piece of cotton fabric fixed around the bottom edge of the specimen. The possible flame spread is measured through the severance of marker threads.

Document: references other documents

Responsible national committee

NA 062-05-43 GA - Joint working committee NMP/NHM: Burning behavior of textiles, textile and upholstered compounds  

Responsible european committee

CEN/TC 248/WG 24 - Test methods for the flammability of textiles