Fire Protection and Materials Flammability Control by Artificial Intelligence

Excerpt

Fire safety has become a major challenge of materials developers because of the massive production of organic materials, often combustibles, and their use for different purposes. In this sense, fire safety is critically considered in the development of engineering materials [1, 2]. The multiplicity of parameters contributing to the development of formulation of flame-retardant materials from one side and the sustainability concerns from the other side make the innovations cumbersome. Typically, there are variety of flame-retardant materials that are different in terms of the type, the amount, and the size, along with processing (e.g., extrusion, and additive manufacturing), and practical (e.g., ultimate price, recyclability, and life cycle) parameters that should be optimized to reach a desired product. On a parallel front, the instructions, standards, and safety requirements bring about further difficulties and limitations with materials design and fire protection. For instance, Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety (SCCS) claasifies materials as non-food products and risky materials as well as consumer services, to highlight health considerations. Correspondingly, fire suppression, fire fighting, fire extinguishing or other terms are defined, but controlling all parameters contributing to consumer safety and customer services requires identification and integration of materials and safety factors into an intelligent system capable of searching, ranking and classifying them in a very disciplined yet quick manner for emergency needs. The performance of a material under fire, both fire reaction and fire resistance, significantly depends on the shape and the geometry of structures, more specifically on the fire dynamics during a defined fire situation along with the material, ventilated, and under-ventilated situations. The selection of testing methodology, would also affect the success of strategies used for fire protection. These all would necessitate a bewildering of scenarios to be identified, classified, and examined by researchers working in the field, which wastes a great deal of time, investment, and practice. …