ISO/TC 92 Fire Safety Activities

ISO (International Organization for Standardization) is the world's largest developer and publisher of International Standards for business, government and society. ISO is a legal association with National Standards Bodies (NSBs) members of some 140 countries, supported by a Central Secretariat based in Geneva, Switzerland. The foremost aim of international standardization is to facilitate the exchange of goods and services through the elimination of technical barriers to trade.

The work of ISO Technical Committee TC 92 Fire Safety concerns safety, health and environmental issues. The standards developed by TC 92 are intended to save lives, reduce fire losses, reduce technical barriers to trade and provide for international harmonization of tests and methods. They are of special value to developing countries, which are less likely to have national standards. The main stakeholders in ISO/TC 92 are industry, in particular the construction industry, national and international regulators (e.g. IMO), consumer groups, research and testing organizations, fire safety practitioners, and certification bodies.

 

ISO/TC 92 has four subcommittees:

  • TC 92/SC 1      Fire initiation and growth
  • TC 92/SC 2      Fire containment
  • TC 92/SC 3      Fire threat to people and environment
  • TC 92/SC 4      Fire safety engineering

 

The May 2014 ISO/TC 92 business plan[1] presents projects for SC3 and SC4 until 2018.

 

TC 92/SC 1 - Fire initiation and growth has developed and published 43 standards. The working groups (WG) active at the moment are:

  • ISO/TC 92/SC 1/WG 5 - Small and bench scale fire test methods
  • ISO/TC 92/SC 1/WG 7 - Large and intermediate scale fire test methods
  • ISO/TC 92/SC 1/WG 10 - Specifications for measuring devices and instruments used in fire tests and methodologies of analysis
  • ISO/TC 92/SC 1/WG 11 - Methods of use of reaction fire tests for fire safety engineering
  • ISO/TC 92/SC 1/WG 15 - Joint WG between ISO/TC 92/SC 1 and ISO/TC 126: Ignition propensity of cigarettes

 

TC 92/SC 2 - Fire containment develops fire resistance standards and integrates calculation methods for fire safety engineering. One topic is the external exposure of roofs to fire.

TC 92/SC 3 - Fire threat to people and environment. The main topics concern fire effluents calculation methods, analysis procedures, species formed in fires, acute and delayed toxic effects, heat, smoke and environmental effects. The projects for the coming 4 years are:

  • Chemical species produced in fires (includes both gases and smoke)
  • Generation of data on yields of chemical species in fires * Acute toxic effects – incapacitation (inability to effect ones own escape)
  • Chronic and delayed toxic effects (as the results of pre-normative work becomes available)
  • Heat effects
  • Smoke effects
  • Environmental effects of fires
  • Guidelines for the use of effluent potency information in fire safety engineering

 

TC 92/SC 4 - Fire safety engineering. The work covers assessment, verification and validation of calculation methods as well as fire risk assessment procedures. The projects for the coming 4 years are:

  • Fire safety engineering process
  • Use of risk assessment models
  • Use of accepted engineering methods
  • Input to FSE methods
  • Calculation methods
     

[1]http://isotc.iso.org/livelink/livelink/fetch/2000/2122/687806/ISO_TC_092__Fire_safety_.pdf?nodeid=792162&vernum=-2

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