ESTABLISHING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF FIRE PROTECTION OF WOOD WITH IMPREGNATING COMPOSITIONS

Abstract

The results of studies of wood combustion parameters and the effect of fire retardants on them are presented. As a result of the studies, it was proved that the process of thermal insulation of a wooden structure consists in the formation of soot-like products on the surface of a natural combustible material. When the burner flame was exposed to a protected sample treated with impregnating solutions based on a mixture of ammonium phosphate and an antiseptic, the temperature of gaseous combustion products was 230 °C and the mass loss did not exceed 9 %, while the wood treated with a composition of urea, phosphoric acids and starch showed a temperature of 160 °C with a mass loss of 3.6 %. It is shown that under high temperature, the coating provides a significant coefficient of swelling, promotes the formation of a heat-insulating layer of coke, which prevents the burning of wood and the passage of high temperature to the material. It has been established that fire protection by coatings provides a low burnout rate of wood samples even with increasing temperature exposure and converts it into a highly combustible material that does not spread flame over the surface.