Comprehensive study of the degradation of an intumescent EVA-based material during combustion

In this work, we have studied the evolution of an flame retardant intumesce nt EVA-based material during combustion. The formulation uses an original c oncept of the laboratory, i.e., use of char forming polymer (here the polya mide-6) as carbonisation agent associated to a carbonisation catalyst in an intumescent formulation. The fire behavior was modelled using the cone cal orimeter and we have explained the evolution of the rate of heat release cu rve in terms of chemistry of the system using FTIR and solid state NMR. (C) 1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers.