Flame retardant coatings for fiber reinforced composites in rail transportation

 
New fire protection doors for rail transportation based on carbon fiber reinforced polymers (CFRP) were developed in the frame of a research project. Such materials show excellent specific properties and lightweight construction potential; however, they should also meet the strict fire protection requirements. The application of intumescent coatings is one possibility to increase the fire resistance of CFRP. In this study, difference wet coatings (based on one layer as well as multi-layer ap-proach) were investigated and applied on CFRP plates. Besides the investigation of the ther-mal stability of the coated materials, also fire tests on cone calorimeter were carried out to evaluate the influence of the intumescent coating on the heat release rate of the materials. Coated CFRP samples showed a significant improvement of the burning behavior in compar-ison to the reference material, fulfilling the fire protection requirements in rail transportation.