Theoretical modeling of intumescent fire-retardant materials

A theoretical model is developed to predict the thermochemical behavior of intumescent fire-retardant coatings. The model is based on the assumption that the intumescent reaction is analogous to the phase change process occurring over a finite temperature range. From the numerical results, it is found that the histories of the substrate temperature can be accurately predicted by choosing adequate pseudo latent heat and temperature range for the intumescent reaction, and the bending evidence observed in experiments can be successfully predicted by the present intumescence model. Finally, it is shown that the present model can readily be extended to simulate the intumescent process with multi-intumescent zones.