Experimental Thermal Behavior of Fibrous Structures for High-Performance Heat Resistant Fire Curtains

Fibrous materials are often used in the manufacturing of fire protection devices such as fire curtains. Their optimization and improved performance is still a topic of interest. The present work aims to develop and test a new combination of fibers arranged in various 2D and 3D patterns with coatings. For this purpose, basalt fibers were added into a glass fiber fabric, and wires of a shape memory material (SMM) were inserted into the fabric to create air pockets induced by temperature. In fire curtains, the base structure is a 2D basket pattern, and all combinations were tested with and without a waterborne polyurethane (WPU) coating with inorganic materials. Three different tests were selected to characterize the thermal behavior: fire resistance, ignitability, and smoke production. Fiberglass proved to be the best material to provide thermal resistance in fire curtains, with the outer surface temperature of the fabric below 650 °C at the end of the tests. The SMM wires provided good protection during the initial stages of the test, but a combination of excessive deformation and reduced strength of the fabric resulted in a sudden failure of the structure. Basalt fibers contribute to a reduction of smoke production. It was observed an improvement of up to 10% in the thermal capacity between 1MIX2 (glass fibers fabric with coating, MIX2) and the best commercial curtain evaluated, Commercial3 (glass and steel fibers fabric with coating).