Focus

Fire safety with Vulcain Cone calorimeter

A cone calorimeter is used for testing the flammability of small samples (10 cm x 10 cm). With this new equipment, the CSTB can test materials at very fine scales.

Thanks to its built-in metrology, the cone calorimeter:
• characterizes the fire behavior of a material (rate of heat release, opacity of the smoke, gases emitted, etc.), at a limited cost
• provides scientific information essential to our comprehension of the physical and chemical phenomena involved in the event of fire.

The cone calorimeter - installed in 2016 at Vulcain, the CSTB's fire test facility located at its site in Marne-la-Vallée - enables useful testing for industrial companies that are developing products. It also allows the CSTB to monitor evolution over time of reaction-to-fire classifications. It is a key tool for scientific research on fire safety.

Why is it called a cone calorimeter? The name comes from the cone shape of the resistor that heats the sample.