Analysis of the Fire Properties of Blown Insulation from Crushed Straw in the Buildings

Abstract

Sustainable development in civil engineering is the clear and necessary goal of the current generation. There are many possibilities for reducing the use of depletable resources. One of them is to use renewable and recyclable materials on a larger scale in the construction industry. One possibility is the application of natural thermal insulators. A typical example is a crushed straw, which is generated as agricultural waste in the Czech Republic. Due to its small dimensions and good thermal insulation parameters, this material can also be used as blown thermal insulation. The research aims to examine the fire resistance of crushed straw as blown insulation. The single-flame source fire test results, thermal attack by a single burning item (SBI) test and large-scale test of a perimeter wall segment are shown. The results show that blown insulation made of crushed straw meets the requirements of fire protection. In addition, crushed straw can be also used to protect load-bearing structures due to its behaviour. This article also shows the production process of crushed straw used as blown insulation in brief.

Experimental Investigation of Two Test Setups on Straw Bales Used as Load-Bearing Elements of Buildings

“…Straw can be used in the construction industry as blown insulation [13], prefabricated straw wall panels [14,15], or self-supporting straw bales [16,17]. Another possible application of straw in the construction industry can be various composite structural elements, for example, in the form of straw-fibre cement composite [18,19].…”