Australian Manufacturing

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JEC Asia Innovation Awards 2009

Category: Raw Materials

JEC Composites Magazine

Surface Tissue for Fire

Composites Australia

Persistence Pays

Connection Magazine: Spotlight on Fire Resistant Composites

U.S. Ship To Shore Connector

The U.S. Ship to Shore Connector (SSC) provides a vessel for U.S. Navy and Marine Corps to transport personnel to land.

This modernized craft replaces the previous Landing Craft, Air Cushion (LCAC) and over the next 30 years, will be utilised reaching over 80% of shorelines in the world.

Ampelite - FireShield® provides superior fire barrier

performance for ampelite roofing panels.

Providing high integrity composite panels with excellent fire performance usually requires the use of difficult-to-manufacture, high viscosity resins, or expensive secondary processes to add fire retardant layers to the finished composite article. FireShield® provides a breakthrough in efficiency and performance for fire-sensitive applications, allowing incorporation of a fire-resistant layer during component manufacture.

Australia’s leading fibreglass sheet manufacturer, Ampelite Australia Pty Ltd, has assessed FireShield® for its glass-reinforced polyester products. Excellent performance was achieved in independent fire tests when compared to alternative fire resistant panels made with phenolic and epoxy resins.

FireShield® contains an intumescent product on a surfacing veil. This foams in the presence of a flame to build a stable char layer at the surface. The result is a superior fire resistant barrier for composite structures, without altering the performance of the underlying composite structure.

Panels were tested using a method based on UL94 - 5V “Tests for Flammability of Plastic Materials for parts in Devices and Appliances”. The test panels were exposed to an 800°C naked flame for 3 minutes with flame penetration, self extinguish time and panel surface temperatures monitored to assess the fire barrier performance of each material.

Ampelite FireShield panels tested showed no perforation through the laminate and immediate self extinguishing following flame removal. Temperature monitoring of Ampelite FireShield panels showed reduced back face temperatures, indicating lower heat transmission and reduced risk of fire spread.

Ampelite panels have been independently tested to

AS1530 -3, “Methods for fire tests on building materials, components and structures”, achieving similar flammability performance to Modar ® resin systems.

Fire in tunnels presents one of the most dangerous, life threatening,

situations, so that the fire tests for materials used in tunnels are amongst

the most stringent used.

The Melbourne Metropolitan Rail network is currently constructing additional tunnels to expand the network, and already has several underground stations being reconditioned.

Pits for services in the floors of such underground areas need to be covered with special pit lids, that can withstand the weight of maintenance machinery and also meet the stringent fire requirements.

FireShield has been selected as the means of achieving the necessary fire performance for the new, and replacement, pit lids, whilst permitting a very strong but light lid to be constructed, easy to install and to open the pit as needed.