A Classification of Flammability of Thermoplastic Materials in Space - Challenges to Utilize ISO4589-2 to Estimate the Flammability Limit under Reduced Gravity Environments-

Abstract

This paper describes the key strategy in FLARE project to estimate/find the flammability limit of the material subjected to various (reduced) gravity fields using the currently-available limiting oxygen index (LOI) obtained through ISO4589-2 protocol. Assuming that the sample thickness and the gravity are independent factors, “two-stage approach” has been proposed to obtain the flammability limit under reduced gravity field of any thickness sample by using LOI. Several attempts which we have been made so far in order to formulate the effect of sample thickness on the limit are presented, then the further challenges and remained tasks to achieve the ultimate goal are briefly summarized.