HOW TO READ THE FIRE REACTION CLASSIFICATION AS PER THE EUROPEAN LAW UNI EN 13501

Our last post explained that fire reaction is the behavior towards the fire of building materials, such as insulated metal panels. Today we explain how to read the fire reaction classification as per the European law UNI EN 13501.

Let’s narrow it down to our products: insulated metal panels, insulating boards, and A/C duct boards. All these products have the fire behavior certificate that contains three parameters:

The first one is essential to understand if sandwich panels contribute to the fire when flames hit it: will it prevent spreading them?

The norm identifies six levels of contribution to fire, from A to F. 
Products bearing the A-level are the best, which means that they do not contribute to spreading the fire or that they are incombustible.
Rock-wool insulated panels are the best example of category A.
PIR sandwich panels usually score in the B-class.
Materials in C, D, and E classes have worse fire behavior, meaning that the more they come closer to E, the more are flammable.
Materials in category F are non-classified, meaning they are not behavior parameters available for this class.

The second parameter, smoke production, comes into three classes: 1, 2, and 3. Class 1 is the best, while category 3 is the worst.
The smoke production factor is essential to prevent fatal injuries, as smoke can be incredibly harmful to human safety.
Rockwool insulated panels again score very well, followed by PIR panels.

The last parameter is the production of burning droplets. Why is also essential the droplets factor? Burning droplets can fall from a ceiling, harm people, and spread fire to stocked goods or machines.
Droplets production can have classes 0, 1, and 2, where 0 scores best and 2 worse. Both Rockwool and PIR/PUR panels score 0 in the Droplet class.

It May be of interest: