FIRE PERFORMANCE OF NAVAL COMPOSITE STRUCTURES

The fire behaviour of composite structures is a major concern for their large-scale use on board naval vessels. Within the framework of a 3-year European military project involving six nations (Denmark, France, large-scale application of fibre-reinforced composite materials to naval vessels and structures, a fire test programme was conducted in order to assess and to improve the fire performance of naval composite structures in peacetime and wartime scenarios. Various tests were carried out on composite structures representative of structural elements used in superstructures of a frigate-sized vessel. This included: – Small scale fire reaction and fire resistance tests (cone calorimeter tests, small scale tests in furnaces) in order to make a preliminary selection of materials. – Full scale fire propagation test on a 6-meter long composite corridor. – Full scale fire resistance tests: tests on stiffened and non-stiffened decks, test on composite/metal joints (representative of the attachment of the composite superstructure to the steel hull), test on T-joint. Most of the structures were mechanically loaded during the tests. Two types of fire curve were used: the cellulosic fire curve (950°C after 60 min) and the hydrocarbon fire curve (maximum temperature: 1100°C). Some of the panels had been submitted to blast and fragments before testing. This paper describes the main findings and lessons learnt from this test programme