Fire Hazards and Priority Areas of Fire-Safe Application of Composite Materials Based on the Aramid Fibers

The article is devoted to topical issues of research on the fire hazard of composite materials in particular the materials based on the aramid fibers. Preliminary analysis of possible areas of their application showed the need for conducting hazard studies. For fire-resistant fabrics considering the operating conditions, research and test methods were justified and selected to determine and evaluate the indicators of flammability, smoke-generating ability, toxicity of combustion products, specific emission of some toxic gases and oxygen consumption, burnout rate. For this purpose, both standard methods and a separate experimental method of complex testing were used. Based on the results of these studies, the new experimental data were obtained, which indicate the fireproof properties of composite materials and fabrics based on the aramid fibers. So, for example, the tested samples belong to the groups (classes) of materials D1 (with low smoke-forming ability), T1 (low-hazardous) in terms of toxicity of combustion products, B1 (hard to ignite) in terms of flammability. The experimental fire hazard data analyzed in the work allow to draw conclusions about the possibility of using the tested composite materials based on the aramid fibers with virtually no restrictions. This is especially true for air support structures of various functional purposes.