Fire retardant treatments facilitate wood-based products to reach the highest classification for combustible products, class B-s1,d0 (Östman et al. 2010). The drawback of several fire retardants (FR) is their poor humidity resistance. They are prone to migrate to the product surface, degrade the wood structure, and leach out (Östman and Tsantaridis 2016). In this regard, it would be practical to apply a portable non-destructive test (NDT) instrument for the quantification of FR present in a construction product; at best, the NDT method allows prediction of fire test parameters or even the reaction-to-fire performance. Based on the North American method AWPA A9-21, the present study assesses the feasibility of using a handheld X-ray fluorescence (XRF) instrument for i) measuring the phosphor (P) content in wood impregnated with an FR, and ii) predicting the fire properties of exterior wood cladding before and after weathering.
Keywords: Euroclass, flame retardant-treated wood, non-destructive testing, cladding
Authors
Ulrich Hundhausen
NTI (Norwegian Institute of Wood Technology), Norway
Erik Larnøy
NIBIO, Norway
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