Development of lightweight fire resistant sandwich panel

Fire resistant panel is one of the crucial element used to construct building components such as fire partition wall, fire door and ceiling. These fire resistant building components function as passive fire protection method to prevent the spread of smoke and fire, and to allow emergency escape of dwellers. Current challenges associated with existing fire resistant panels are heavy, labor and time inefficient. In this research fire resistant sandwich panels which are lighter in density were invented without compromising the fire resistant performance. Three fire resistant sandwich panels with various thickness were produced for two hours fire rated testing. Fire resistant sandwich panels were fabricated using respective mix proportion of vermiculite and consolidated with intumescent binder via molding techniques. Temperature profiles of fire resistant panels were recorded, plotted and analyzed. Fire resistant sandwich panel with optimum outcomes was determined by density, fire resistant performance, heat transmission rate, adhesion strength and flexural strength. Fire resistant sandwich panel Z obtained the best results in overall. Fire panel Z achieved a maximum temperature at only 83.2 ºC in the Bunsen burner test, indicating a higher fire resistivity with lower heat transmission rate. Panel Z had the highest flexural strength and better fire endurance and yet with the lowest density of 578.98 kg/m³. This research revealed formulation of fire-resistant sandwich panel was the key manipulating factor to density and fire resistivity.