Natural materials, including wood, are becoming increasingly important for fire safety along with eco-friendly living. The fire risks of combustible materials were comprehensively reviewed using Chung’s equation-XII and the newly proposed Chung’s ...
Natural materials, including wood, are becoming increasingly important for fire safety along with eco-friendly living. The fire risks of combustible materials were comprehensively reviewed using Chung’s equation-XII and the newly proposed Chung’s equation-XV. As a case study, the fire characteristics of five wood specimens were evaluated using a cone calorimeter according to the ISO 5660-1 standard. The external heat flux was set to 50 kW/m². The relative rankings based on the fire risk index-XII (FRI-XII) were as follows: zelkova (0): ranking 6 < oak (0.02): ranking 5 < pine rigida (0.09): ranking 4 < chestnut (0.19): ranking 3 < polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) (1): ranking 2 < lauan (4.69): ranking 1. The relative rankings based on the fire risk index-XV (FRI-XV) were as follows: zelkova (0.00): ranking 3 ≈ oak (0.00): ranking 3 ≈ pine rigida (0.00): ranking 3 ≈ chestnut (0.00): ranking 3 < lauan (0.03): ranking 2 < PMMA (1): ranking 1. However, the results based on the fire risk index-XV (FRI-XV) did not provide discrimination between test specimens. Therefore, it was found that there is a need to comprehensively evaluate the fire risk, including the ratio of mean carbon monoxide production rate (COPmean, g/s) to mean carbon dioxide production rate (CO<sub>2</sub>P<sub>mean</sub>, g/s), as in the evaluation of FRI-XII.