THE THERMAL-BEHAVIOR OF A BLEND OF COTTON AND FIRE-RETARDANT POLYESTER FIBERS - A KINETIC-STUDY

This work compares the thermo-oxidative degradation of cotton and fire -retardant polyester fibre (PESFR) fabrics and that of a cotton/PESFR blend, The association in a blend of PESFR with cotton fibres improves the burning behaviour of the latter, The invariant-kinetic-parameter (IKP) method allows one to modelise the degradation of the material, a nd in particular to compute the degradation velocity. We demonstrate t hat the 'fuel-flow' rates give rise to the fire retardancy of the mate rials and that the latter, in this case, does not depend on the nature of the gases evolved.