Combustibility Determination


BS 3900-A11

 combustibility tester

Scope and Field of Application

BS 3900-A11 is a go/no go procedure for use in the paint and allied industries to determine whether a product is combustible within the meaning of the UK Highly Flammable Liquids and Liquified Petroleum Gases Regulations 1972.

Combustibility is one of the properties which can be used to assess any potential fire hazard associated with manufacture, transport, storage and use. Another important and related property is flash point. Please visit our Flash Point page for details.

The actual standard is a copyright-protected document and we are not able to provide you with copies. If required however, you can easily obtain copies from the British Standards Institution.

 

Summary of Method

The standard includes a detailed description of the equipment used to carry out the test. Essentially it consists of a small temperature-controlled dish which is heated to 50 °C

A barometric pressure reading is taken and used to correct the dish temperature to standard atmospheric pressure. A specified quantity of the test sample is placed in the dish and a test flame applied.

For the purposes of the Regulations, a product is judged to support combustion if it can be ignited and then continues to burn for 15 seconds after the flame is removed.

The equipment is available commercially and the image above shows a Series 3 instrument made by Stanhope-Seta

 

Sample Requirements

We require at least 200 ml of sample.

 

Accreditation

Although PRA is accredited to ISO 17025 by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS), we are not accredited to carry out this particular test.

 

Please contact Peter Collins for further details.

 

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