Abstract
The fire resistance of thermal insulation and interior finishing materials is recently much emphasized after the fire accident at the Icheon Cold Store in January 2008. Three kinds of thermal insulation are used in buildings. They are Organic, Non-organic and cellulosic insulation. Organic insulation such as polystyrene foam board and urethane foam has high thermal resistance but it has no fire resistance. While non-organic insulation such as rockwool and glassfiber has high fire resistance, it has lower thermal resistance than organic insulation. Cellulose insulation is primarily manufactured from recycled newsprint or cardboard using shredders and fiberizers. Despite of its environmental friendliness and high thermal resistivity, its domestic use has not much increased because of the prejudice that paper can easily burn. However, the cellulose insulation as a product is about 80 wt.% cellulosic fiber and 20 wt.% chemicals, most of which are fire retardants such as boric acid and ammonium sulfate. It is required to secure its fire safety for more consumption as a building insulation in Korea. Therefore, this study investigates the fire resistance of Korean cellulose insulation according to the rate of fire retardant and finally presents the optimum rate of fire retardant in cellulose as building insulation. The fire safety test was conducted according to the ASTM C 1485-00. The test results indicate that above 18 wt% of fire retardant is necessary to secure the fire safety of cellulose insulation.