Burning and Flammability Behavior of Polymer/Clay Nanocomposites in Combustion

Burning and Flaming combustion can be divided into physical and chemical processes taking place in each of three separate phases: gas, mesophase, and condensed phase [1, 2]. Thephysical processes are including (1) energy transport by radiation and convection between the gas phase and themesophase and (2) energy loss from the mesophase by mass transfer and conduction into the solid. The important chemical processes are include (1) thermaldegradation of the polymer in a thin surface layer as a consequence of the physical processes, (2) mixing of the volatile pyrolysis products with air by diffusion, and (3) combustion of the fuel-air mixture in a combustion zone that produces radiant energy over a spectrum of wavelengthsincluding visible[2, 3]. In this work, epoxy resin/novolac powder (80:20 wt. ratio) composite and its nanocomposites containing nanoclay wereanalyzed. The main objective of this study is to examine the influence of the radiation external heat flux combustion properties at cone calorimeter condition