Assessment of factors affecting fire performance of mattresses: a review

Abstract

An in-depth analysis of U.S. residential fire statistics shows that although the total number of fires and deaths due to mattress fires has dropped as a result of several regulatory approaches, the mattress/bedding fires continue to account for one of the largest shares of residential fire deaths and injuries. To address the increasing number of deaths per 1000 mattress/bedding fires, the open flame mattress flammability regulation (16 CFR 1633) was introduced in 2007. The 16 CFR 1633 prescribes performance standards rather than design standards; this allows manufacturers the flexibility to meet the needs of the consumer without sacrificing fire safety. This flammability regulation for residential mattress has generated much interest in understanding the burning behavior of mattresses as well as in developing new materials for mattress construction. To comply with this regulation, it is essential to understand mattress construction, fire performance testing, factors affecting mattress flammability, and compliance solutions. This report reviews the impact of current mattress flammability standards, examines factors affecting mattress flammability, and reviews full-scale and bench-scale test methods that are being developed for mattresses. The construction type, geometry, and size of a mattress are major factors in determining the fire threat of a mattress. The soft materials used in the mattress set, including cushioning materials, fire blocking materials, and tickings, act both individually and collectively to affect the fire performance. The performance of fire barrier materials designed to protect the inner cushioning material from heat and flame is largely dependent on the choice of cushioning material and ticking. When used with an incompatible combination of filling material and ticking, a fire barrier may fail to protect thermal degradation and subsequent burning of filling material. Some of the challenges in designing mattresses have been identified and reported here.

Effects of variations in incident heat flux when using cone calorimeter test data for prediction of full‐scale heat release rates of polyurethane foam

“…CA TB 121 ) or dormitories (CA TB 129 ). A review of the development of mattress fire tests can be found in .…”

Pollutant emissions from the pyrolysis and combustion of viscoelastic memory foam

“…However, this trend 41 must change in the next few years in order to achieve the targets proposed by the European 42 Parliament for landfilling (European Commission, 2014). These facts, together with the high 43 recoverable energy value of this type of waste, comparable to coal and slightly less than that of 44 fuel oil, make the waste-to-energy the best disposal option (Guo et al, 2014;Nazaré et al, 2012). 45 VMF was developed in 1966 by NASA's Ames Research Center (Simón et al, 2015), but it 46 did not arrive in the public domain until 1991 when the first viscoelastic mattress was marketed.…”

Flame retardancy testing and regulation of soft furnishings

“…A more detailed report on assessment of factors affecting fi re performance of mattresses is available elsewhere. 43 …”