In the aeronautics, composite materials are widely used. An important issue is that they may be exposed to a flame, during a malfunction of the engines or after a crash. This work is a comparative study, at laboratory scales, of the degradation of carbon epoxy composites with impinging jets of kerosene and propane flames. The propane and kerosene burners have been developed to allow the exposition of small composite samples, of few cm sizes, to heat fluxes greater than 110 kW/m2. The sample holders were designed to carry out measurement of the mass loss rate and IR temperatures at the rear face during tests. For the two flame tests, the mass loss is nearly complete after 300 s, the resin is almost degraded throughout the sample depth, leaving the fibers naked on the front face, and a small amount of degraded resin on the rear face. However the speed of the degradation is slower with the kerosene flame, with a maximum temperature value reached at the rear face lower than for the propane flame. This is explained by the presence of high amounts of soot in the kerosene flame, while they are nearly non-existent in the propane flame. The high soot content in the kerosene flame induces the built-up of a black carbon layer on the front face, which may reduce the heat transfer between the impinging flame and the sample face.

International Seminar on Fire and Explosion Hazards (9; 2019; Saint Petersburg, Russia). Proceedings of the Ninth International Seminar on Fire and Explosion Hazards [Электронный ресурс]: 21-26 April 2019, Saint Petersburg, Russia. Vol. 2 / Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, Autonomous Non-Profit Organization "Fire and Explosion Safety", Gefest Holding Ltd ; [edited by A. Snegirev [et al.]. — Электрон. текстовые дан. (1 файл : 98,7 Мб). — Saint Petersburg, 2019. — Загл. с титул. экрана. — Свободный доступ из сети Интернет (чтение, печать, копирование). — Adobe Acrobat Reader 7.0. — <URL:http://elib.spbstu.ru/dl/2/k19-97.pdf>. — <URL:http://doi.org/10.18720/SPBPU/2/k19-97>.