Abstract:
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Passive Fire Protection (PFP) is used to protect industrial equipment against accidental fires, delaying the temperature rise and the loss of mechanical properties of the structural materials. If properly applied, this may prevent failures, losses of containment and accident escalation phenomena. In this way the adoption of FPF represents an important safety measure to prevent "serious danger to human health and/or the environment" as required by the Seveso Directives for major hazard installations. Some PFP materials (e.g. epoxy intumescent coatings) may undergo significant degradation during fire exposure, accompained by devolatilization and variation of their physical properties. Modelling the performance of PFP materials would require a through investigation of the degradation behaviour. In the present work, the degradation of commercial PFP materials exposed to high temperatures will be analyzed using Thermo-Gravimetric (TG) techniques. The significant decomposition steps will be identified and apparent kinetic models will be developed for the description of the weight loss behaviour. |