Cone calorimeter and room corner fire testing of balsa wood core/phenolic composite skin sandwich panels

Polymer composite sandwich core panels are of interest for lightweight construction and portable shelter use. In this article, material selection and construction design were considered for an application which required a high level of fire safety performance. Phenolic + fiberglass skin composites with balsa wood core sandwich panels were constructed and first screened for fire performance with the cone calorimeter (ASTM E1354) at different heat fluxes. From these data, fire testing in the room corner test (ISO 9705) was conducted. The results indicated that these composites could only pass the room corner test if an aluminum skin was used to provide some additional fire protection to the underlying composite. Furthermore, it was found that cone calorimeter testing at very high heat flux (100 kW/m(2)) was not always indicative of fire performance in the room corner test. How the aluminum skin was mechanically attached to the panel as well as underlying composite construction played an important role in the full-scale fire test results.