Document zd6n9j594ZpRDRBY6Zxvojwxn

INTER OFFICE MEMO Cs aJH"'Ks - 7&, -/o~? TO T.L. Heying AT New FROM C.H. Hofrichter AT New ^IbKNAL USE,ONLY ,, | '.X) OLIN-RECEIVED '^0 JAN 1 * 1977 IffHaven November 29, 1976 TECH. INFO. SERf HAVEN Haven COPY TO See Distribution SUBJECT SUPPLEMENTARY MONTHLY REPORT NOVEMBER 1976 - - RHPCRl rlLiA-D. National Fire Protection Association - Semi Annual Meeting in Cincinnati, \^ O. - Nov. 15-18, 1976 jf--;icV RA.V' ^ r --v<; ,, - L The bad news is that we were unable to get the adverse treatment of ^Ej-ethane filled floating tan/&ecks (Conalco) turned around. There is pro- c7t)>afaAy, only slight hone of this in the future unless expensive testing is con- >0 ii 1 Co A^2.;^rhe good news is that the insurance industry fought the battle success- , ^^^fullyto preserve the market for urethane insulation for, computer rooms. ''^T* c=- C/ ^ - `` ' JLT"*- yjT^Erwin Benjamin of National Bureau of Standards (fortunately he spoke v~~3 !1^4$'to an audience of about 150) discussed room/ corner tests on exposed Urethane foam Flame Spread *200, 60 and 30, Isocvanurat^foam Flame . *$]3Tea.d *25, plywood and fiberglass. They conduct a fully lined room test C with a 5000 BTU/min gas burner and measure time to flashover. All ure thane foams flashed over in less than 20 seconds. Plywood took 2. 6 minutes and Polyisocyanurate over 5 minutes. 4. The new Life Safety Code was adopted and will go into effect January 1, 1977. o Meeting with National Bureau of Standards - Nov. 22-23, 1976 1. The Combustibility Institute was thoroughly explored with John Lyons, Head of the NBS Fire Research Center. Pertinent comments are as follows a) To straighten out the ''life hazard in real fire situations" liability which industry faces requires a lot more technical attention than it is presently getting. Therefore, he welcomes the possibility that another competent center for combustibility methodology might come into exist ence. OLI 7645 * This numerical flame spread rating is not intended to reflect hazards presented by this or any other material under actual fire conditions. "ArrmFNT<: arf prfvfntart f _ ai i thf ttmf" T.L. Heying -2 - November 29, 1976 b) He would like to see it concentrate on a more pragmatic approach and hope that there would be a crossover to the "computer modelling" approach being followed at NBS. c) I believe this completes the obligation we have to make sure that NFPCA and NBS believe that the Combustibility Institute can play a key role in dealing with the national fire problem. , _____c_ x..V ' 2. National Bureau of Standards is approaching the Fire Hazard problem on a broad front: detection, suppression, firespread,smoke assessment, toxicology, furnishings, buildings, rugs, fabrics aircraft, mobile homes, transportation, etc. etc. with heavy emphasis on computer modelling. Un fortunately, most of the programs are so complex that there is little cross over at the working level. This gives the impression that it will be a long time before NBS actually deals with the industry problem. Public pressure to resolve the problem may lead them to recommend unrealistic test meth ods over the next five years. I plan to keep our dialogue open with NBS to short stop standards that may be prematurely promulgated. 3. National Bureau of Standards has set up a one-quarter scale model of the corner room test as a possible or potential test method for flasho^ver and smoke development. It is possible that this could be enclosed in a full scale room compartment to model a house and be tied into toxicology measure* ments. Olin should definitely see to it that a high quality Flame Spread *25 RF-230 and competitive urethane foam gets into this modelling program. 760 sq. ft. of foam is required. William Parker is in charge of this work under Don Gross and Erwin Benjamin. 4. Currently National Bureau of Standards is giving no inkling of what the protocol for hazard of toxic combustion gases measurement will be. But, the parameter they are looking at is 10 plus times the hazard of carbon monoxide. Present data shows CO responsible for^ 50% of all fire fatalities; add alcohol and cardiovascular diseases combined with CO and this number goes up to 80%. The target date for the protocol is September 1977. Merrit Birky who is in charge of the NBS work visited the Olin Fire Test Laboratory last week. 5. Thus far,no unusual toxicants (10x) have been observed in the SPI samples of PVC, polyurethane, polystyrene and polyisocyanurates_. The rest of the program is incomplete. i y. V" o SPI Plastics in Construction Council - Nov. 23-24, 1976 OLI 7646 1. Revised code language was hammered out in the presence of the Tech nical Directors of the Standard and Uniform Building Codes. It will be cir culated as soon as it arrives in the minutes. It will be voted on as a com plete package by 2-23-77 and submitted to all three model codes by SPI. 2. A meeting to resolve the smoke criteria for the Uniform Building Code T. L. Heying -3 - November 29, 1976 will be held 12-3-76 in Los Angeles. E-84 in the "most critical config uration" and visual documentation (movies - videotapes) during diversified testing will be required as Research Committee Acceptance Criteria. A copy of the official film test must be provided by the testing agency for examination and retention by the Research Committee. ' 3. No one has submitted the SPI 25 ft. corner test data to the model code groups to provide a basis for affirming SPI guidelines. All members of in dustry were encouraged to submit data to Model Code Groups that would aid in interpreting low hazard ways of using cellular plastics and/or that support code changes. 4. The Commercial Fire Rating Schedule issued by the Insurance Service Offices (Water St. , NYC) has just issued a new insurance schedule that penalizes insurance premiums for buildings containing cellular plastics by 3-10x. It is now effective in seven states, with eight more in 1977 and will reach 38 states by 1979. CHH:jbp DISTRIBUTION W.L. Allison J. S. Babiec, Jr. W. J. Best A. D. Cianciolo W. C. Collyer D. C. Dodge J.A. Forsman E. G. Glass R.A. Hagstrom J. C. Hance L. A. Hankins G. Hasapis R. Henderson F. S. Ingraham A.W. Lopez D. D. Palm E. B. Poliak D.G. Powell F. J. Preston M. A. Raymond C. H. Hof richte r D. R. Shine R.E. Smith A. H. Syrop B. G. vanLeuwen E. R. Vath R.N. Williams TRC OLI 7647