Recently, standard fire resistance testing has been questioned for combustible products. A part of the comments address the thermal boundary conditions and the different thermal exposure of combustible products in comparison to incombustibles. These comments are evaluated in this technical note. To compare heat flux measurements of combustibles and incombustible products when tested in a furnace, furnace tests were performed. The furnace was controlled by plate thermometers to follow the EN 1363/ISO 834 standard temperature-time curve. It could be proven that (a) the heat flux measurements at the specimens surface behind the plate thermometer (PT) are not higher than in front of the PT. The reason for this is most likely that no flaming combustion is possible near the surface due to the low oxygen content typically for a furnace. It could be further shown (b) that the heat flux measurements when combustibles are tested follow the trend reported in literature for incombustibles. Further, (c) that the lower burner fuel used in furnaces is due to the contribution of the specimen (ca. 30% in the presented tests) and due to the lower thermal inertia (ca. 20% in the presented tests). Finally it can be concluded that the thermal exposure of combustibles and incombustibles is equivalent in furnaces simulating a ventilation controlled fire development for a pre-defined duration.
