Ningbo, China · GMT+8 Mon–Fri 08:30–18:00

Calcium silicate board: A1 fire rating, 800 N pull-out

The base board in most hospital and office partitions is a calcium silicate sheet. The numbers that matter are fire class, density, moisture movement and screw holding.

The board is made from wood pulp fibre, cement and lime as the calcium source, quartz sand and fly ash as the silica source, formed and then cured under high-pressure saturated steam to build a tobermorite crystal structure. The result is inorganic, dimensionally stable and non-combustible.

The published figures are what a specifier should check. Thickness 8, 10 and 12 mm, sheet size 1220 × 2440 mm, apparent density 1.05 ± 0.05 g/cm3, screw holding at the face not less than 800 N, fire class A1, smoke toxicity AQ1, moisture expansion below 0.12 %, drying shrinkage no more than 0.06 %, bending strength at least 10 MPa and impact resistance at least 2.2 kJ/m2.

The two numbers that decide whether a painted finish cracks are the moisture expansion and the drying shrinkage. A board that moves 0.12 % on wetting and 0.06 % on drying moves about 1.4 mm across a 1.2 m sheet. That movement has to be absorbed at the joints — which is exactly what the flexible seal and the taped joint are for — rather than resisted by a rigid joint that cracks.

Screw holding of 800 N is what makes the board usable as a service interface: sockets, small cabinets and hand-sanitary brackets can be fixed to it without a separate backing, provided the fixing is not within a cut edge. Where the load is heavier, the reinforcement module takes it into the stud grid, as it would on any other board.

All notes