Hybrid fire retardants to increasing combusting resistance for fibers-reinforced composites

Abstract

Abstract This research aims to attainment two essential purposes : first, using of inorganic fire retardant which represent zinc borate to increase the flame retardancy for advanced composite material consist of araldite resin (AY103) reinforced by hybrid fibers from carbon and Kevlar fibers as a woven roving (º45 - º 0), by using a surface layer from zinc borate as a coating layer of (4mm) thickness .Then, this system was exposed to a direct flame generated from Oxyacetylene torch (3000ºC) with different flame exposure distances [10,15,20mm], and study the range of resistance of retardant material layer to the flames and protected the substrate . Second, forming a hybrid fire retardant by added antimony trioxide with various amount (10%,20%,30%) to zinc borate for enhance the action of this material to react flame and exposure this hybrid material to same flame temperature and exposure distances. Method of measuring the surface temperature opposite to the flame was used to determined the heat transferred to composite material . the best results was obtained with large exposed distance and large percentage from protective layer which is zinc borate with (30%) antimony trioxide .