The report "Assessment of reaction to fire behaviour of façade cladding of wood. Fire testing of cladding with different types of treatments"has now been published.
This report describes 19 large-scale fire tests of wood cladding with various forms of treatment. The test setup is intended to represent a real façade, and the tests were carried out at RISE Fire Research's laboratory in Trondheim in the spring of 2021.
The tests were carried out with different levels of fire exposure representing fire in smaller objects. Burner effects of 125 kW, 251 kW and 376 kW have been used in the experiments. The purpose of the project has been to investigate the fire development in these cladding products and to interpret the results in relation to the safety level of buildings with such claddings. The results of the large-scale tests have been assessed and compared with results from fire testing in small and medium scale tests of the same products. This was done to investigate if the tests in a smaller scale can predict the fire behaviour of the claddings in the large-scale test.The study is limited to investigating fire development and flame spread on the exterior surface of a façade with wooden cladding, to assess the differences between claddings with different treatments. The report also describes the regulations for exterior cladding provided in the Norwegian building regulations with guidelines, and the system for fire testing and classification of such products.
Full report in Norwegian with English summary (
pdf)