Glass Fiber Reinforced-Fire Retardant Composites For Offshore Platforms Application

Composite materials have been selected and introduced as one the main materials in all industries, especially construction of buildings and also for oil and gas industry applications for the past few decades. However, composite plastics are facing the same problem as most materials, especially regarding the fireproofing characteristics when caught in a fire. This report is focusing on preparing, developing and analyzing the performance of fire retardant composites, which is glass fiber reinforced fire retardant composites for potential application on offshore platforms by using fire retardant coating called Intumescent Fire Retardant (IFR) coating. IFR coating is an organic resin based product functioning as fire retardant coating where it can be applied to metallic materials, polymers, textiles, wood as well as structural steel in buildings, storage tank in order to protect them from weakening when encounter elevated temperature in a fire. In this paper, an Intumescent Fire Retardant (IFR) coating formulations which consist of three main agents; Acid Source; Ammonium Polyphosphate (APP), Carbon source; Expandable Graphite (EG) and blowing agent; Melamine (MEL) followed by epoxy, Boric Acid, Polyamide Hardener (TETA) and few additives are developed. The formulations were varied with the presence of alumina as fillers. The developed coatings later were applied to the glass fiber using impregnation method, in which the coatings act as the composites matrices and will be reinforced by Chopped Strand Mat Glass Fiber. The cured samples later were tested on fire retardant performance test using portable Bunsen burner. The char expansion as well as heat shielding will be thoroughly observed and the results obtained will be further studied using X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) techniques to observe the thermal analysis and char morphology of the formulations.