| EXECUTIVE SUMMARY |
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The causes of human casualty in actual fire accidents are 55% by carbon monoxide poisoning and suffocation, 38% by burn, and 7% by others.
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From these results, it is important to observe the following points for safety:
| (1) |
To prevent fire accident. |
| (2) |
To select fire retarding building materials. |
| (3) |
To select the building materials with less generation of carbon monoxide in fire accident. |
1. PVC in combustion:
| 1) |
Fire retarding and self-extinguishing features are the unique properties of PVC among various plastics. |
| 2) |
PVC radiates less heat in combustion, and thus causes less spreading of fire toother materials. |
| 3) |
PVC generates less smoke in combustion compared to other materials. |
2. Generation of combustion gas from PVC:
| 1) |
PVC generates hydrogen chloride in combustion, but the generation of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide is proportionally reduced, and is slightly less than wood. |
| 2) |
PVC doesn't generate toxic hydrogen cyanide and aldehyde compounds. |
| 3) |
Hydrogen chloride is not anesthetic as carbon monoxide. Besides, hydrogen chloride serves to provide an escape signal with its pungent odor. |
3. Toxicity of combustion gas from PVC:
| 1) |
Combustion gas from PVC remains almost the same level with other materials based on various data on lethality of experimental small animals as presented in a later part of this paper. |
| 2) |
This is related to the fact that carbon monoxide is the dominant factor of human
casualty in fire accidents. |
| 3) |
It has been reported that the concentration of carbon monoxide generated by fire accident exceeds the lethal level, while hydrogen chloride concentration remains
below 1/10 of the lethal level. |
| 4) |
As the result of indoor fire simulation of actual scale, it has been reported that "The decomposition products from burnt PVC would not claim human lives". |
| 5) |
None died of dioxins in the exposure accident in Sebeso, Italy and the fire accident at Dusseldorf International Air Port, Germany. There is no report of death incident due to dioxins in other cases as well. |
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| Thus, PVC is an excellent material for construction and housing, and it is considered that the present experience, 60% of PVC is used as the construction and housing materials, is based on this fact. |
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