The paper presents results of tests related to smoke optical density conducted on four various textile floor coverings for the needs of building interior design. Smoke emission is one of basic elements that characterize the fire environment. Consequently, the objective of the paper was to carry out a comparative analysis of smoke generation of chosen floor coverings for selected thermal exposures and in the presence or absence of a stimulus igniting the volatile gaseous phase (pilot flame). For the needs of our experimental research use was made of polypropylene, polyester, composite of wool, cotton, viscose and polyamide floor coverings. The highest value of the maximum specific optical density of smoke (494.7) was recorded for the floor covering consisting of 100% polypropylene (with higher fiber) under flameless combustion conditions (without the pilot flame). The polypropylene floor covering without underlay proved to be the best material from among all the tested ones with respect to smoke generating properties, and its samples offered the lowest value of optical density after 4 min for testing variants without the application of a pilot burner, with the flammable phase of decomposition products of this sample during the testing in which the burner was used to ignite at the latest. Experimental research has been carried out based on the standard ISO 5659-2:2017-08. The tests results were compared with international optical smoke density requirements for the interior design of ships and trains.
Keywords: fire environment; floor covering; smoke emission; visibility in smoke.