1. Conical Heater - is wound in the form of a truncated cone, rated
5000 W at 230 V with a heat output of 100 kW/m2.
2. Facility for testing horizontally or vertically orientated
specimens
3. Temperature control by the use of a 3 type K thermocouples and a
3-term (PID) temperature controller.
4. A Split Shutter Mechanism - protects the sample area before the
test. This ensures the initial mass measurement is stable and the
operator has additional time for system checks before starting the
test. This added time is very important for easily-ignitable
samples, which often ignite prematurely if a shutter mechanism is
not used.
5. Specimen Holders - for specimens 100mm x 100mm up to 50mm thick,
in the horizontal and vertical orientation.
6. Load Cell - mass measurements are conducted via a strain gauge
load cell with an accuracy of 0.01g. Fitted with a quick electronic
tare facility and mechanical stops to avoid movement damage, give
stable results and long life.
7. Spark Ignition - by 10 kV spark generator fitted with a safety
cut-out device. The igniter is automatically positioned by a lever
linked with the shutter mechanism.
8. Exhaust System - manufactured from stainless steel for long
life. This comprises, hood, gas sampling ring probe, exhaust fan
(with adjustable flow controls from 0-50g/s, at a resolution of at
least 0.1g/s) and an orifice plate flow measurement (thermocouple
and differential pressure transducer). Normal operation is at a
nominal 24 l/s.
9. Gas Sampling - comprising particulate filters, refrigerated cold
trap, pump, drying columns and flow control.
10. Oxygen Analysis - paramagnetic oxygen analyser, which has a
range of 0-25% and a performance compliant with the standards.
11. Smoke Obscuration - measured with a laser system, using
photodiodes, and a 0.5 mW Helium Neon laser, with main and
reference (compensating) photo detectors. Supplied with alignment
cradle and 0.3, 0.8 neutral density filters for calibration.
12. Heat Flux Meter - for setting the irradiance level at the
surface of the specimens.
13. Calibration Burner - to calibrate the rate of heat release
measured by the apparatus using methane of 99.5% purity.
14. Data Acquisition – Agilent Data Acquisition / Switch Unit
featuring a 3-slot cardcage with 6½ digit (22 bit) internal DMM
enabling up to 120 single-ended or 48 double-ended measurements.
Scan rates up to 250 channels/s are available with a 115kbaud RS232
and PCI GPIB interface as standard. All readings are automatically
time stamped and can be stored in a non-volatile 50,000-reading
memory.
15. ConeCalc Software – it is available in multi-languages
including English, French, German, Spanish and Japanese. The user
interface is a Microsoft Windows based system with “user friendly”
push button actions and standard Windows data entry fields,drop
down selectors, check boxes and switches capable of:-
Showing the status of the instrument
Calibrating the instrument and storage of calibration results
Collecting data generated during a test
Calculating the required parameters
Presenting the results in a manner approved by the Standards
Averaging of multiple tests
Exporting data into FDMS (Fire Data Management System) - a format
used by major European and US labs for sharing data between labs
with different calorimeters.
Exporting file for CSV (comma separated variable) files for quick
transfer to spreadsheets.