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Evaluation of CPSC Upholstered Furniture Flammability Test

Kurt A. Reimann


 
ABSTRACT

In the early 1990's a petition was submitted to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) asking the agency to address flammability hazards associated with upholstered furniture. CPSC reviewed the petition and granted the portion dealing with hazards of small open flame ignition. CPSC developed a flammability fixture and test similar to the BS-5852 test. BASF used one of these fixtures to test more than 100 fabrics over 4 types of conventional and fire retarded (FR) polyurethane foams using the CPSC test protocol. Many of the fabrics were also treated with flame retardants to improve performance in the test.

The results indicated that there was some pass/fail inconsistency with FR backcoated fabrics which passed the BS-5852 small open flame test. Many of these fabrics did not pass the CPSC test and of those that didn't, there were mixed pass/fail results in most. For cotton fabrics, a solution topical FR treatment was effective. Laminated interliners seem to be effective while loosely wrapped interliners were ineffective for poorly behaved fabrics. The use of even heavily flame retarded urethane foam did not significantly improve the results for poorly behaved fabrics.

Inconsistency in some testing data and other technical issues raised during this evaluation indicate that the currently written CPSC test protocol may not be appropriate for use as a national flammability standard for upholstered furniture. At a minimum it was suggested that a rigorous round robin trial be undertaken to further assess the technical merits of the test protocol.

In July of 1999 a letter of invitation was sent out by CPSC to several laboratories to be part of a round robin testing program. Nine labs agreed to participate in two separate sessions. The ASTM Task Group looking at this issue reviewed the test protocol by September of 1999 and suggested to CPSC that it was premature to proceed with the program until several significant test method questions were answered; however, CPSC decided to go ahead with their plans. Some testing parameters may change as a result of further CPSC evaluation. The second session of the round robin is scheduled to be completed in the first quarter of 2000.



Reprinted from Proceedings of the 2000 Beltwide Cotton Conferences pp. 827 - 837
©National Cotton Council, Memphis TN

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Document last modified Saturday, Jun 17 2000