Thermal degradation and flammability of aerogel incorporated UPR/EPS composites with organic nanocrystal presence
Abstract
The increasing use of Unsaturated Polyester Resin (UPR) and other polymeric composite materials had led to a significant rise of fire load and hazards within buildings. Traditional FR filler additives often requiring significant loadings for attaining effective fire retardancy levels; this generally causes significant performances and processability degradation. The construction industry demands for high quality building material having a notable energy efficiency and fire safety characteristics. In this study, silica derived Aerogel fillers were used for insulation enhancement, in the fabrication of translucent window and roof panelling. Flammability and thermal degradation were investigated for aerogel integrated UPR/Styrofoam (EPS) composites with and without organic Nanocrystal (ONC) presence. The flammability was studied via the ASTM D635-10 method, where the flame speeds across a horizontal linear distance are reported. The thermal degradation was performed via a Thermal Gravimetric Analyser. The studied aerogel content lies between 0wt% to 0.2wt% against a constant 0.2wt% ONC content. The flammability tests had found that, the UPR/EPS only S0 sample is the least flame retardant composite; while the sample S4 possesses the slowest reported flame speed, thus makes it the best flame resistant composite. For thermal degradation analysis, all samples were found to exhibit some initial oxidative reaction; which increases the material mass before reverting back to original mass values at around 150°C. All specimens starts to significantly decomposed the temperature range between 350°C and 430°C, before leaving an average of 10wt% residue beyond 460°C.
- Publication:
-
National Symposium on Polymeric Materials 2017 (NSPM 2017)
- Pub Date:
- July 2018
- DOI:
- 10.1063/1.5047176
- Bibcode:
- 2018AIPC.1985c0018M