Survey of American test methods associated with fire performance of materials or products

Abstract

Various organizations throughout the world write fire standards. These include both national and international organizations. In the United States, the most important fire standards writing organization is the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM). Fire standards are also, however, developed by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), and Underwriters Laboratories (UL), but they are often similar to the ones issued by ASTM. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) are the primary international standards making bodies. All of these organizations create various types of fire standards, mainly guidance documents and test methods addressing most of the major fire properties. It is interesting that fire standards throughout the world are all tending in the same direction: away from simple ranking tests and geared towards test results that can be used as input into mathematical fire models or fire hazard assessment and research, and real-scale tests to be used for validation of the small-scale tests and models. This is particularly noticeable when considering the geometrical increase in work on heat release standards, a type of fire property which is crucial for fire safety, but was unknown only a few years ago. ASTM has a total of over 100 standards associated with various aspects of fire, including guides, terminologies and specifications as well as test methods. Within ASTM, committee E5 is specifically dedicated to writing generic fire standards. However, many other committees, which have different primary responsibilities, also write fire standards which are specific to the materials, products or occupancies of their concern. Thus, for example, committees D7 (on Wood), D9 (on Electrical Insulation Materials), D11 (on Rubber), D13 (on Textiles) and D20 (on Plastics) all write fire standards for their materials, as do committees F15 (Consumer Products) and F23 (Protective Clothing). Committees interested in Aircraft (F7), Ships (F25) or Correctional Facilities (F33), also write standards that deal with fire issues. The process by which ASTM develops consensus standards is public, and every concern expressed must be addressed, through a relatively strenuous procedure. At NFPA, all fire tests are developed by the Fire Test committee, the members of which are appointed, and the results of whose deliberations are published. Comments can then be made by others and the final recommendations are voted on in public meetings by the entire membership. Such standards generally tend to contain pass-fail criteria, while those of ASTM tend to be generic. UL standards are not generated by public consensus: UL is a private organization which canvases industrial opinions, and makes its own decisions. These decisions can be questioned, but UL makes the final determinations themselves.