Investigation of a tracer gas method to evaluate smoke leakage of door assemblies.

A pilot test series has been performed to study the possibility of using carbon dioxide produced by the burners of a test furnace as a tracer gas to measure the fire gas leakage of door assemblies. The experiments show that a test method based on tracer gas techniques can be developed avoiding thedrawbacks of the proposed ISO test method DP 5925 Part 3 based on the use of an enclosure. The investigated method works well for leakage measurements in ambient and medium temperature ranges. A special test door suitable for theoretical estimation of leakage rates was used in the test. The agreement between the experimental and theoretical results is satisfactory.