Predictive Methods for the Fire Resistance of Single Skin and Sandwich Composite Materials

Polymer composite materials are becoming increasingly popular in many engineering<br/>structures in the civil, aerospace, marine and automotive industries. The increased<br/>strength and stiffness to weight ratios which are possible with certain types of<br/>composites make them particularly attractive to many high performance applications<br/>such as military aircraft, offshore lifeboats and formula one racing cars.<br/><br/>One aspect of composite materials which is preventing more widespread use is the<br/>perceived poor performance in fire. The perception is due to the fact that organic<br/>compounds used in polymer composites are combustible. The loss of the Norwegian<br/>Navy’s composite mine hunter vessel Orkla in 2002 to a fire did much to prevent<br/>further widespread use of such materials.<br/><br/>The work presented here describes the research that has been conducted into assessing<br/>and predicting the performance of single skin and sandwich composite materials<br/>subjected to fire and mechanical load. The materials that were investigated were<br/>representative of the materials used in the construction of Royal National Lifeboat<br/>Institution (RNLI) lifeboats.<br/><br/>A new method has been developed to assess the response both thermally and<br/>mechanically of single skin and sandwich panels subjected to combined fire and<br/>mechanical load. This has been done by the construction of a small scale fire and load<br/>testing apparatus. An empirical relationship was developed to predict the stiffness of<br/>single skin and sandwich panels during a fire and load test.<br/><br/>Numerical models have also been generated to predict the thermo-mechanical response<br/>of single skin and sandwich panels to fire and load. Testing of single skin and sandwich<br/>panels on the newly developed apparatus has been conducted to verify the numerical<br/>models.<br/>The numerical models and the empirical relationship were used to predict the response<br/>of a full scale composite sandwich panel, representative of a lifeboat deck, to a standard<br/>cellulosic fire and mechanical load.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Ph.D.

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Southampton

Year dc:date.issued

2008

Author dc:creator

• Cutter, Philip Anthony

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Shenoi, Ajit