Wednesday, August 28, 2013

New Ignitability and Burning Behaviour of Materials and Products for the 2nd Quarter 2013

Document Center Inc. is pleased to announce that the following New Standards on Ignitability and Burning Behaviour of Materials and Products are available:


  • ASTM D92, 2012B Edition, Standard Test Method for Flash and Fire Points by Cleveland Open Cup Tester
  • ASTM D4391, 1993A Edition Reaffirmed in 2013 with 1 Editorial Change, Standard Terminology Relating to The Burning Behavior of Textiles
  • ASTM D6413, 2013B Edition, Standard Test Method for Flame Resistance of Textiles (Vertical Test)
  • ASTM D6890, 2013A Edition, Standard Test Method for Determination of Ignition Delay and Derived Cetane Number (DCN) of Diesel Fuel Oils by Combustion in a Constant Volume Chamber
  • ASTM E662, 2013C Edition, Standard Test Method for Specific Optical Density of Smoke Generated by Solid Materials
  • ASTM E1537, 2013 Edition, Standard Test Method for Fire Testing of Upholstered Furniture
  • ASTM E1590, 2013 Edition, Standard Test Method for Fire Testing of Mattresses
  • ASTM E1822, 2013 Edition, Standard Test Method for Fire Testing of Stacked Chairs
  • ASTM E2102, 2013 Edition, Standard Test Method for Measurement of Mass Loss and Ignitability for Screening Purposes Using a Conical Radiant Heater
  • ASTM E2579, 2013 Edition, Standard Practice for Specimen Preparation and Mounting of Wood Products to Assess Surface Burning Characteristics
  • ASTM F1514, 2003 Edition Reaffirmed in 2013, Standard Test Method for Measuring Heat Stability of Resilient Flooring by Color Change
  • ASTM F1516, 2013 Edition, Standard Practice for Sealing Seams of Resilient Flooring Products by the Heat Weld Method (when Recommended)
  • BS 8602, 2013 Edition, Method for assessment of fire integrity of cast resin busbar trunking systems for the safety critical power distribution to life safety and fire fighting systems
  • BS EN ISO 340, 2013 Edition, Conveyor belts. Laboratory scale flammability characteristics. Requirements and test method
  • BS EN ISO-5659-2, Corrigendum 1, Plastics. Smoke generation. Determination of optical density by a single-chamber test
  • BS ISO 7176-16, 2012 Edition, Wheelchairs. Resistance to ignition of postural support devices
  • BS ISO 19701, 2013 Edition, Methods for sampling and analysis of fire effluents
  • IEC 60695-2-10, Edition 2.0, Fire hazard testing - Part 2-10: Glowing/hot-wire based test methods - Glow-wire apparatus and common test procedure
  • IEC 60695-9-1, Edition 3.0, Fire hazard testing - Part 9-1: Surface spread of flame - General guidance
  • IEC 60695-11-10, Edition 2.0, Fire hazard testing - Part 11-10: Test flames - 50 W horizontal and vertical flame test methods
  • ISO 340, 4th Edition, Conveyor belts - Laboratory scale flammability characteristics - Requirements and test method



Fire safety and fire testing standards remain as relevant today as when they first made an appearance with the establishment of NFPA (National Fire Protection Association) in the late 1800's.  As you can see, products as diverse as electronics, textiles, furniture, flooring, and manufacturing equipment all need to be tested for fire characteristics and resistance.

NFPA publishes a number of useful reports containing statistics on fire, fire damage, and fire injury.  One interesting fact is that a U.S. household can expect 5 fires during a lifetime (most, luckily, are too small to report to a fire department).  The good news is that fire safety standards like those above are having a positive effect on the number of deaths from fires reported in the U.S.  While in 1905, 105 people out of a million were killed by fire, in 2007 that number was down to 9 out of a million.  

If your product requires the use of fire safety and testing standards, please make Document Center your vendor of choice.  We are here to help you with all your standards requirements and questions.  We're your Standards Experts.