Flammable Materials

What is the Most Flammable Material?

By: Jaxon Grauel

Question

What is the most flammable material?

Hypothesis

My hypothesis is that the Nomex cloth will work the best

Abstract

Most Flammable Cloth

I wanted to investigate which clothing material is the most flammable. I chose this topic because my dad is a firefighter and I wanted to find out which material is the most flammable so other people can not buy this in case that they are involved in a fire related incident. My goal on this project was to raise awareness on the most flammable clothing material. I chose the topic because I wanted to investigate the most flammable clothing material and wanted to make people aware of the concern. Many people are involved in fires and are wearing terrible clothing material to fight against the fire. I believed that the Nomex will be the most flammable resistant. I think this because my dad wears this when he is working and so do a lot of firefighters and he said that it is very fireproof.

The way I did this experiment is grab a fireplace cover and place it on top of the fireplace. I put the cloth at an angle, almost 50 degrees, to make the fire more natural and rise upwards. When the cloth was angled correctly and set up correctly I put a lighter directly on the fire for 10 seconds and let it burn till the fire is completely out. After the fire has been put out, I remove the piece of cloth and put it into a bag and copy the time.

During the test, I had wrote all the times and the observation notes. The nylon took 1 minute to stop, and 1 minute to disappear. Secondly, Cotton took 30 seconds to stop and 30 seconds to disappear. Next, Reyon took 37 seconds to stop and 37 seconds to disappear. On the other hand, Linen took 1 minute to stop, and 50 seconds to disappear. Otherwise, Silk took 50 seconds to stop and 1 minute to disappear. Finally, Nomex did not even light on fire no matter how many times the lighter was on it. The results have been scattered and I think that the most comfortable and fireproof clothing material is linen. On the other hand, Nomex is the most fireproof but not the most comfortable.

What I learned about this project is that many clothing materials are different and don’t stand up to fire very well. My hypothesis was correct. I believed that Nomex would be the most fireproof because my dad, a firefighter, wears it while he is working. The errors during this project is that the cloth might be not the right size, and not be at the correct angle. I could improve this experiment by taking more time and detail. I can make wooden invention that would ensure that the cloth is always at a correct angle. I could also make sure the fire is steady and move upwards each time.

Procedure

1. Cut each piece of clothing 5 inches in width and diameter.

2. Get a piece of clothing (nylon, cotton, silk, wool, polyester, nomex)

3. Place the piece of clothing in a fire proof bowl, outside

4. Put a match on the piece of clothing for 10 seconds

5. Keep the piece of clothing in the bowl for 5 minutes.

6. If the piece of clothing is known to be fireproof, every

2 minutes add .5 seconds of fire on the piece of clothing.

7. When the timer hits 5 minutes, the piece of clothing should be extinguished

Graph

Conclusion

In conclusion, I learned that in this experiment, all kinds of clothing material is not the same. Some are very fire resistant, some aren’t at all. My hypothesis was correct, I thought that the Nomex will do the best and it did. During my experiment, I could have made a better tool to keep the angles consistent. This project had taken much time and consideration. Overall, this project was very interesting to do.

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