These days, a mineral wool is generally using insulation on offshore installations for fire-protecting walls and doors. However, normally a structural performance of the insulations is not considered in a conventional structural analysis. For that reason, a database on mechanical properties of insulation materials are lacking for use in analysis. Moreover, the recently used high density mineral wool has a higher structural performance than existing low density mineral wool and it could affect the structural performances of fire protecting walls and doors. Accordingly, a database of material mechanical properties of high density mineral wool was built by a series of material tensile test considering elevated temperature for a fire condition. The database could be used for further thermal and structural analyses as an input data. The present paper is a sequel to the previous paper (Part II: Numerical Approach for structural behavior. Kim, et al., 2018). In contrast to the previous paper which dealt with structural behavior of mineral wool structures, the present paper presents the details o f experimental results are documented for material properties of mineral wool.
A mineral wool material is a common material for onshore and offshore structures as a thermal and acoustic insulation against fire accidents. High insulating performance and light weight is a key issues of the mineral wool for space efficiency and weight effectiveness on marine and offshore structures. However, the insulation is a functional material not a structural material. Therefore, the structural performance of insulation is passed over in a conventional structural design method due to a small amount of structural rigidities. Limited researchers are considered a structural performance of insulation (Buska, Lybye and Maciulaitis, 2007; Buska and Maciulaitis, 2007). But they are restricted with limited material characteristics, focusing on a compression loading because it is studied as a roof insulation material. Nevertheless, it is installed into vertical structural members between thin metal walls in marine and offshore structures. Therefore, material properties for structural analysis are needed.
The mineral wool could be selected based on the heat resistance capacity.
