Firestrip - Smoke Seals

Firestrip is a system of intumescent products simultaneously tackling the problems of fire and cold smoke containment in openings through fire Walls.The compartmentalisation of a building is essential to contain the spread of smoke and fire, but these compartments have to be penetrated by services and accessed by users.The design of passageways and exit doors is regulated to allow safe evacuation but once a compartment is cleared the spread of fire and smoke must still be inhibited. In particular fire doors which allowed safe escape must now contain the fire.This is where intumescent materials come into play. At temperatures in excess of 100 - 150 degrees C the materials swell to over five times their original size and tightly seal the edges of doors and glazing panels.For these materials to act the ambient temperatures have to exceed 400 degrees C. Such temperatures are not survivable so there is no question of people being trapped by sealed fire doors. They can however be easily opened by firefighters.Fire doors should also be designed to contain cold smoke. It is widely understood that the presence of smoke is a serious hazard in the evacuation of a building.Intumescent material is typically fragile and difficult to work with but by encasing it in PVC the ease of application is vastly improved. Indeed many new possibilities are opened up, for example in the fabrication of air transfer Grilles between building compartments.The PVC encasement also allows the use of fins and brushes in combination with the intumescent material combining two distinct and important functions of cold smoke and fire containment with one product.Firestrip is also available in the form of paper which can be inserted between Glass and glazing beads in Vision Panels of fire doors. See fig 2.