Fire is one of the most frequent and common major disasters that threaten public safety and social development. And textiles, which are flammable substances, are often the culprits behind fires. If the textile is given a flame retardant function to become a flame retardant textile, the burning rate can be significantly delayed during the combustion process, and it can quickly self-extinguish after leaving the flame, less toxic smoke is released, and the flammability of the textile is significantly reduced. With the diversification of flame retardant varieties of textiles, the detection methods of flame retardant properties are also constantly updated.

For the method of testing the combustion of textiles, we are talking about the test standard of BS 5438. What is the BS5438 test method?

BS 5438: Methods for Flammability of vertically oriented textile fabrics and fabric assemblies subjected to a small igniting flame standard describes methods of test for flammability of textile fabrics by observing and measuring the limited flame spread and vertically oriented test specimens when subjected to a small igniting flame applied to the face or bottom edge.
Condition at least 24 h in an atmosphere having a temperature of 20 ± 5 °C and a relative humidity of 65 ± 5 %.

The  principle of BS 5438 Flammability Tester is install the fabric sample on the fixture of the instrument and burn the sample according to the required flame for a certain period of time to record the relevant data (burning time) for assessing its combustion performance.

This tester is a test method for observing and measuring the flammability of textiles under conditions that limit the flame spread test and the vertical or bottom edge of a vertical sample to a slight flame. A product made of a single fabric or composite material, such as a coating, a multilayer fabric.