Aircraft seat cushions fire resistance comments on the standardized tests

Abstract The following experimental programme has been conducted to help towards a better understanding of the fire behaviour of aeronautical seat cushion materials and kerosene burner standard tests (FAA FAR 25): • measurement of heat fluxes of thermally inert test seats, specially built in refractory cement, • measurement of latent heat of degradation for five selected seat cushion materials using the cone calorimeter apparatus, • standard (kerosene burner) measurement of mass loss for the above mentioned selected materials. Extended analysis of the experiment results has enabled the identification parameters strongly influencing standard test results (mainly geometry and positioning of the test seat), and also, for the particular case of fire resistant foams, to derive rules of classification with respect to fire response. These rules provide an improved characterization of test seat behaviour and highlight important fire resistance parameters (in particular density and latent heat of degradation).