United States Department of Transportation
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Inhalation Toxicology: V. Evaluation of Relative Toxcity to Rats of Thermal Decomposition Products from Two Aircraft Seat Fire-Blocking Materials
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1985-11-01
[PDF-838.22 KB]
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Edition:OAM report.
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Abstract:Two fire-blocking layer (FBL) materials, designed to delay the thermal decomposition of polyurethane foam seat cushions during an aircraft cabin fire, were evaluated for the relative toxicity of their gaseous combustion products. Each materials was thermally decomposed under five distinct thermal environments: two contact temperatures (600 and 750 c) in a horizontal hot tube furnace and three flux levels (2.5, 5.0, and 7.5 w/cm) in a radiant heat furnace. The measured toxicological endpoint was time-to-incapacitation (+ sub i) in the albino rat; this endpoint is believed to be the most relevant one for assessing smoke hazard in a fire environment.
In three of the five test environments, norfab, an aluminized synthetic fabric, produced shorter + sub i--and was thus toxic--than vonar, a neoprene foam. however, at 2.5 w/cm in the radiant furnace system, the norfab test specimen lost only 13 percent of the sample weight and did not incapacitate any of the test animals during the exposure period and, at 750c (flaming) in the combustion tube assembly, norfab produced longer and more variable + sub i than did vonar. Hydrogen cyanide (hcn) was detected in the combustion products from norfab under all test conditions except the 2.4 w/cm radiant flux level; no HCN was dtected in the test conditions except the 2.5 w/+ sub i radiant flux level; no HCN was detected in the combustion products from any of the vonar tests.
Since norfab routinely produced lower concentrations of carbon monoxide than did vonar under all test conditions, the greater apparent toxicity (shorter + sub i) of norfab would appear to be caused by the cyanide production.
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