Effects of Ceramic Fibre on Char Strength of Intumescent Coating

In industry, steel structure can be protecting with the intumescent coating
when it exposed to the high temperature or fire burning. Basically, in intumescent
system, a coating layer that formed during a fire burning is called char. Function of
the char layer is to protect the surface of steel. Current intumescent coating are
lacking of strength when they exposed to fire burning. Adding the ceramic fibre to
coating should kindly effect the strength and composition of char coating due to its
application on thermal insulation. So, the objective of the project is to study effects
of char strength if we reinforce the fibre into the intumescent coating. Reinforcement
of fiber in intumescent coating will strengthen up the char and can provide additional
protection on steel structure from fire. In this research, two types of experiment have
been done. First experiment basically focuses on choosing one better formulation out
of thirteen formulations. All of the ingredients were mixed using the liquid mixer.
Then, the mixtures were applied to the steel (5cm × 5cm) and dry it into the room
temperature. The thicknesses of the steel with the coating were measured using
venire caliper before and after the fire testing. The samples were exposed to the heat
using the furnace up to 400oC. The results showed that steels were protected by the
produced. Based on observation of the samples, the author had chosen one best
formulation for used it in second experiment. The formulation will used with adding
the ceramic fibre to increase the strength of char. All procedure is similar with the
previous experiment. 6 samples have been prepared which varied with 3 different
length of fibre and 2 different weight of fibre. After applied heat to the steel with
same temperature of 400oC, the samples have been tested and analyzed using
Scanning Electron Microscopic (SEM) machine to be observed.