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Technical Paper

Flammability of Plastics in Today's Automobiles

2015-04-14
2015-01-1380
According to the National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA), from the most recent available data, it was estimated that there were 164,000 highway vehicle fires in 2013 causing roughly 300 civilian fire deaths, 925 civilian fire injuries and $1.1 billion in property damages [1]. In a modern automobile, the plastics content is dramatically higher than it was in 1972, when Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) 302 was implemented [2]. FMVSS 302 applies only to materials in the passenger compartment and was put in place to address accidental fires started from sources such as cigarettes, matches, etc. There has never been any regulation for the plastic materials used outside the vehicle interior, including those used in under-the-hood (UTH) applications, and this is true even for today's automobiles. Combustible materials are roughly twice the weight and represent twice the heat content of the gasoline used in a typical passenger car today, constituting the major fire load [3].
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