3.2. Fire resistance
Cubes of 100 mm size were used for studying the fire resistance
of polystyrene foamed concrete. Small scale sandwich panels were
placed on top of a heating unit and four thermocouples (T1-T4)
were inserted into the sample, which was covered with a square
galvanized steel sheet with 305x305x0.55 mm on the opposite
side. The ceramic heating elements were set to reach a maximum
temperature of 900 C [112]. The small scale sandwich panels were
considered to fail when the cold face temperature reaches 160 C,
i.e. thermocouple T4 reached the threshold value of 160 C. The
polystyrene foamed concretes with densities of 150, 200, 250
and 400 kg/m3 were prepared for fire resistance tests. The details
of the heating unit are shown in Fig. 1.