ISO/DIS 3957

Reaction to fire tests — Parallel panel test method for wall systems — Measurement of heat release and smoke production

Scope

This standard will specify a large-scale fire test method for measuring the heat release rates (HRR) and the smoke-production rates (SPR) of wall systems. The fire scenario covered in this document is representative of severe fires originating in near wall or corner locations of an exterior or interior wall construction. Severe fire exposure to wall systems, on the order of 100 kW/m2 heat flux, are targeted in this test method. For this standard, the test setup is placed under an ISO 24473 compliant large-scale calorimeter of a minimum 3.5 MW chemical HRR capacity. An existing large-scale fire test, viz. the 16-ft parallel panel test (16-ft PPT) of the consensus ASNI/FM 4880 standard, is submitted to be used as the basis of the proposed ISO standard.
The test method is not applicable for scenarios where a fire initiates within an air cavity, if present, of an exterior wall system. The test method does not incorporate a window structure and hence cannot cover the hazard from inadequately protected window openings in a post-flashover fire scenario.