Preventing steel from losing its strength during fires is crucial for safe evacuation and effective fire fighting. One of the most common protective coatings applied to steel and other construction materials today is intumescent paint. In this study, researchers created a potential new protective coating using a curable silicone base and varying volume amounts of expandable graphite between 5-25%. The key characteristic of these coatings is that they swell to ...
Intumescent paints protect steel structures from fires by creating insulative foams when heated above a critical temperature. This paper examines the fire resistance capabilities of phenyl silicone coatings in comparison to intumescent paints. A thermal constant analyzer measured the thermal conductivity of the silicone-based coatings using the transient plane source (TPS) technique. Results showed that the silicone/modifier coating consistently had lower thermal conductivities than the silicone coating. At heightened ...
In order to investigate the morphology of intumescent polyurethane (PU), X-ray tomography is used. Nano MgO was added to some of the chars as a synergist. The results of the morphology investigations were then correlated with measured thermal conductivities of PU chars over a range of temperatures. It was found that X-ray tomography was useful in observing the breakdown of chars during burning. In addition to this, adding nano MgO ...