New method to test property of combustion of molten solid/liquid/powder

Better understanding of burning behavior of polymer materials is of great importance to reduce risks of fire disasters. Cone calorimeter is one of very important and useful tools to characterize burning behaviors of materials, which can generally well characterize a burning process of materials to yield much detailed information. However, if samples are in molten liquid and powder states, they become hard for a cone calorimeter to reflect the actual burning behaviors of materials according to international standard of ISO 5660-2002. To overcome this obstacle, in this study, a new method is proposed with which samples in a solid, liquid or powder state can be well tested, and data show excellent reproducibility with improved efficiency. A set of tests on PC and PP in different forms showed that the combustion behavior is quite different for the same sample, and our method provided great insight into this difference.