Does bullet resistant also mean fireproof?

Fire resistance is an important factor to consider when determining what safety materials you’ll need for your construction project. The old adage, “prepare for the worst and hope for the best” is a good approach to take. 

If you are considering bullet resistant panels to help protect your family or business, then the fact that they are also fire resistant will give you added peace of mind. Fire resistant panels not only help protect the people within a building, but help prevent a fire from spreading to neighboring buildings as well. 

Our bullet resistant panels have a 1 hour fire rating. This means that the wall withstood a fire endurance test without passage of flame or gases hot enough to ignite cotton waste, for a 60-minute test. Transmission of heat through the wall during the fire endurance test did not raise the average temperature on the unexposed surface more than 250° above the initial average temperature, nor any individual temperature more than 325°F above each individual thermocouples initial reading. 

This test is performed by a third-party company, which helps to ensure that certain standards and measurements are met to keep the public safe. 

Here is a timeline of the observations made during this test:

Time (min : sec), Observation

0:00 Furnace fired at 3:25 PM

0:35 Gypsum paper turning dark

0:50 Ignition of the paper

1:10 Paper ash flaking away from the exposed surface

8:00 Exposed surface turning light

15:00 No visible change

25:00 No visible change

35:00 No visible change

45:00 Light smoke issuing from the top of the unexposed surface

60:00 Furnace extinguished and assembly moved into position for the hose stream test

62:15 Hose stream test begins

62:25 Hose stream test ended. All of the gypsum wallboard was knocked off the exposed surface and a few of the outer layers of the FRP panel were hanging from the exposed surface. The hose stream did not penetrate the entire panel and did not allow passage of water through the unexposed layer of gypsum wallboard. Upon closer inspection, it appears that heat intense enough to scorch the fabric had penetrated through the outer five layers. There were a total of 16 or 17 layers of fabric in the panel.

So when you are making safety decisions for your building plans, rest assured that by integrating bullet resistant paneling, you are incorporating fire resistance too.

If you are interested in seeing the full technical test information, talk to one of our CSE representatives and we would love to send you the full length PDF.