Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

Generalized relationships have been developed between chemical heat of combustion, product yields, corrosion, and equivalence ratio for the halogenated polymers. Results are presented for four fluoro- and five chloropolymers and a polyethylene-polyvinylchloride cable. The chemical heat of combustion and yield of CO2 decrease and yields of CO, hydrocarbons and smoke increase with the halogen content of the polymer. The combustion of the halogenated polymers is very inefficient compared to the non-halogenated polymers and is strongly affected by a slight reduction in the air flow rate. For example, for PVC, increase in the equivalence ratio from 0.40 to 0.60 results in increases in the yields of CO and smoke by 650 and 260 % respectively and a 29 % decrease in the combustion efficiency. For the non-halogenated polymers, the yields of CO and smoke do not show any increase until the equivalence ratio reaches values greater than unity. Corrosion in the gas phase is quantified in terms of a corrosion parameter. The corrosion parameter is insensitive to the generic nature of the halogen atom but is very sensitive to the presence of the hydrogen atom in the chemical structure.