Project informations
Status:
Ongoing
Period:
February 2024 to January 2027
Maja Katharina Fjalland
Business Ph.d. / Industrial PhD
This PhD project investigates and models how moisture transport affects the mobility and leaching of fire retardants in wood and how these processes influence the fire performance.
The use of wood in construction has the potential to reduce the CO₂ footprint of the building industry. However, fire risk remains a barrier to the broader application of wood, particularly in facades of larger and more complex buildings. Fire retardants are applied to wood to enhance its fire safety. Unfortunately, these fire retardants can migrate within and leach from the wood when exposed to moisture and rain, which over time may reduce their effectiveness. To assess the long-term fire performance of wood facades, it is therefore crucial to understand and model how moisture transport affects the mobility and leaching of fire retardants.
The project has three main objectives:
- Development of a Material-Level Model: The first objective is to characterize the processes and material properties that govern moisture transport and the mobility and leaching of fire retardants in wood. This knowledge will form the basis for developing a model that describes the relationship between moisture transport and fire retardant mobility.
- Investigation of Different Fire Retardant Systems: The second objective is to investigate how different types of fire retardants and the addition of resins affect fire retardant mobility and resistance to leaching. The experiments will contribute to a better understanding of how the chemical properties of the fire retardants and their potential fixation within the wood influence their distribution and stability under different moisture exposures.
- Effect of Redistribution and Leaching on the Fire Performance of Wood: The third objective is to investigate how moisture-induced redistribution and leaching of fire retardants affect the fire performance of wood. The amount and distribution of fire retardants within the wood will be characterized after different moisture exposures, after which the fire performance will be investigated using cone calorimeter tests. This will provide insight into how changes in the amount and distribution of fire retardants within the wood affect its reaction to fire.
The results of this project will provide new knowledge on how moisture affects different fire retardant systems in wood and how redistribution and leaching are related to changes in the material's fire performance. This knowledge can contribute to a better assessment of the durability of fire-retardant-treated wood and, in the longer term, support the development and documentation of more robust fire retardant treatments for outdoor applications.
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