¶ Importance of Fire Safety Standardization
Hello everybody , welcome to the Fire Science Show . In the podcast we are trying to talk a lot about some aspects of fire safety engineering profession that perhaps are not that much known to the engineers and from my perspective , that's definitely the world of fire testing and standardization .
Not many of us engineers are involved in those processes and yet they are highly influential over everything that we do as fire safety professionals . This is the reason why I'm bringing guests from the world of laboratories and standardization into the show .
I've had my good colleague Piotr Turkowski in the podcast where we've talked about the fire resistance and how fire testing looks like . We've had Birgit Messerschmidt .
I've recently had Rudolf Van Mielo All of them important episodes showing you the kitchen of how standards and classes and the entire system that allows product certification and placing products on the common market in the European Union works like , and this episode is no different .
I have invited Bjorn Sundström from LIA , but Bjorn has most of his life spent at RISE or SPPAC . He was also director at Fire Research AS in Trondheim , which was then acquired by SP , and he's also involved with Brandfusk , so entire career spent in a fire testing laboratory . So he definitely has great insights over how stuff works from this perspective .
In this episode we try to go into what makes a good standard , why we need standards and I try to do it from perspective of laboratory manufacturer and also the end user or the society and we also try to understand why it takes so much time and why we really need good standards after all . So enough of talking important episode . I hope you enjoy it .
Let's spin the intro and jump into the episode . Welcome to the Firesize Show . My name is Wojciech Wigrzyński and I will be your host . This podcast is brought to you in collaboration with OFR Consultants . Ofr is the UK's leading fire risk consultancy .
Its globally established team has developed a reputation for preeminent fire engineering expertise , with colleagues working across the world to help protect people , property and environment .
Established in the UK in 2016 as a startup business of two highly experienced fire engineering consultants , the business has grown phenomenally in just seven years , with offices across the country in seven locations , from Edinburgh to Bath , and now employing more than a hundred professionals .
Colleagues are on a mission to continually explore the challenges that fire creates for clients and society , applying the best research experience and diligence for effective , tailored fire safety solutions .
In 2024 , ofr will grow its team once more and is always keen to hear from industry professionals who would like to collaborate on fire safety futures this year , get in touch at ofrconsultantscom . Hello everybody , I'm here today with Professor Bjorn Sturmström from Lulea University . Hello , bjorn , good to have you in the podcast , bjorn .
Sturmström . Hello , thank you .
Thank you for being here , sturmström , I'm very happy to have you in the show . I've met you like a decade ago when we had a funny conference in Poland .
That was good times and I know you were very involved back then running a large testing laboratory and , throughout your career , very involved in development of fire safety from , let's say , the standardization testing house laboratory side . So I would love to talk to you about the standardization in fire safety .
I had some talks in the podcast so far where mostly we were criticizing it , if anything kind of of interesting discussions . But I would love to openly talk standardization with you today and my first question would be like why do we need standardization related to fire safety products ?
How does the world where we don't have one compares to the world in which we have products that are standardized ?
Oh yeah , that will be . For one thing , you will not be able to sell products between countries . This is one important issue , that is , it takes away trade barriers . If you look at the European system , the standards there allows you to sell products in 30 countries or whatever , which is very important . And the other thing is about safety .
You need to be able to declare the properties of a product , because that is what you need when you're trying to make something at a certain safety level and you need a declaration procedure for that and that's a standard . So you need the standards very badly . You can compare with cars , for example .
They get one tooth standard , so you need the standards very badly . You can compare with cars , for example they get one tooth and you fall five stars and they are tested according to a scenario where they crash into walls and being crashed from the side and whatever . Take the passengers . So standards are extremely important and you cannot live without them .
I like the example of cars , because every time I see an advertisement of a new car it always has five stars , Like if no other measure existed for the manufacturer . But in the end I feel the stars are in some way an ambiguous summary of safety of the vehicle against crash . That's my feeling . I don't know the details how it works .
That's my view and , as a consumer , that this car will deliver me safety because it has five stars . How about like safety products ? How do people perceive like you talked about , market manufacturers ? What about just users , I'd designers , people who are not interested in putting products in the market ? They have to use the products in their design .
How is the regulatory system of fire safety providing them with this overarching information of what safety is Well ?
the standard is the declaration of a property of a product , a property of a product you know . You take , for example , non-combustibility . That means that your product , in real light situation , will not continue to fire to any extent that it's increasing the danger for normal use , right ? That's one thing you know .
And the other end of these European classes is products that could cause flash over in a small room for sort of 12 seconds or something like that . So you have information there . And then the other aspect is , of course , the regulation , because the regulation asks for certain properties than our products .
And if the regulations ask for non-combustible construction , then you have these standards for non-combustible construction , then you have these standards for non-combustibility and you have this product that declare that property . There's a C mark on them saying this is Euroglass A1 or A2 , which means that it had been tested and verified to be non-combustible .
So then you can select those products . And if you don't have that , you can select , you know something else .
So , between the bodies , markets , the regulations and the user , do you think for whom the standardization has the biggest value ? You know how valuable it is to have standardization . Is it more important for the manufacturers because of the market regulation ? Is it key for regulators ? Could regulators regulate without having standardized tests ?
Perhaps that's a better question .
That's a very interesting question . Can you regulate without knowing the properties of the products that you're regulating ? That's quite difficult . You see , you need to be able to declare properties . Whatever that is , you know it can be scenario-based standards that we have now , or it can be some sort of fundamental properties .
If you're building a bridge , you don't have to , you know , test the bridge because you can test the properties of the steel , and then you have models that allow you to build a bridge that will have certain strengths , but you're still declaring properties . You have to do that , or you could say we have no regulations on fire . See what happens .
This is again a very interesting comparison because in fire safety let's now think about something very complex like a facade system . You know we , you technically , could test all the components and get some outcome of that .
Let's say , do material testing on the components , run cone calorimeter or non-combustibility test on every material , and then you have a large facade mock-up , like your Swedish test or the newly designed European test , where you test a massive sample in the full scale .
And I wonder to what extent there is even a chance that we can predict performance of a product from just knowing the properties of the subcomponents or little things that go inside .
Well , that's again it's a very interesting question . It's extremely complex thing because you have to predict the behavior of the system , which is not only the behavior of the incoming materials and their burning behavior , ignition and pyrolysis rate and whatever .
You also have to predict the flow that's going on there inside the air gaps and so on , and the mechanical properties of the construction when it is exposed to heat .
So this is , of course , a thing that would be very nice to do , but I think it's also extremely complex Because you know , on a facade , if you have a fire that's going on inside a flat , you have a big flame going out through the window exposing the construction around the window , for example , the appearance of whatever is there , so you don't have a fire
going on inside the window , for example , the appearance of whatever is there , so you don't have a fire going on inside the facade . And then you have perhaps barriers , heat barriers between the floors to stop the flame spread going on , and you know mechanical properties , things falling off the facade and everything .
You have to predict all that in comparison to making a test , and the test , of course , will not show you everything either . So these things are very complex .
I mean , there is one thing you can do on materials test , and that is if you prescribe that your facade should be non-combustible , which is a material test , you will have steel and brick , concrete and whatever , and that facade is not going to burn .
That's the ultimate prescription .
¶ Complexity in Fire Safety Testing
I wonder , from your very long career in one of the biggest European laboratories , were ever such efforts undertaken to try and get complex system assessment from a collection of smaller tests , and to what extent were they successful ?
Yeah , well , it was done with the cold calorimeter . You know , to predict the room fire in the small room standardized rule corner test procedure and you could use the cold calorimeter metadata there to have some quite good predictions . But you know , then again that's not the building , so the road fire is the reference scenario in the SPI test .
Now it can also be the reference scenario easily to the cold calorie . So there is this superposition models that do that . I think also you find it in the SDS , that kind of water you could put in colorimetry data there . So that's what it is around , and then I don't really know what is going on there .
That is something I think you would like to have that you are being able to use the huge amount of data that is generated through the standards and being able to use that for predictions . That will be one thing that is very nice to do , and otherwise it's , of course , to develop test methods again or standards again .
That would provide you with useful data for using the SDS and these kind of all these works are pretty things .
Yeah , but still cone would be like still some sort of material properties . How about , if we can use the example of facade again ? You have a facade with a cavity . You can have a cavity width of five centimeters , six , seven , twelve , fifteen . Perhaps each of them will behave differently in in different fires .
You may have hundreds types of render on the facade , you may have the different types of insulation in your facade and also because of architectural function of that facade , it is kind of built for a purpose of a specific building , so it will have specific architectural details around the windows , specific corners , connections , perhaps those tons of tiny , tiny things
that we know very well that influence the outcome of the final test .
So I wonder if there exists any approach or were any developments in like testing the details and from this test medium or small scale test extrapolate to large samples , like testing different I don't know closings of cups or the detailing around windows , you know , instead of of gaps or the detailing around windows .
You know , instead of building 10 meter tall facades to just check the frame around the window , could we perhaps check you know 100 frames and then say , ok , these 30 are good and the other ones are bad .
I don't know any such work . Maybe you know better than me if there's anything like that going on . I don't know , I don't know . That's extremely complex . You know better than me if there's anything like that going on . I don't know , I don't know . That's extremely complex , you know .
If you go back to the cars again , it would be like instead of running a crash test as they do , you send in a drawing of your car and you send in the material properties the yield and the products and then you calculate the crash . I don't know they don't do that . I don't know they don't do that .
I know , and your example here of a facade is extremely complex . So I mean , you would tell the test . And the test is not going to be enough either , because , as you say , there are variants here . Do they really build it exactly as you have tested , and so forth .
But I will go for the test .
I'm building this example , example , you know to challenge you because , uh , a standard , as we said before , or as you you've explained me , at the beginning there's like market , there's regulators , there's user , but in the end it's the , the market , the manufacturers who pay for the test , who obtain the certification , who put their products into the market .
I always wondered is there a big interest for a manufacturer to actually do tests that is , building-related or element-related , like more complex than just the product characteristic they're selling , more going outside of the box that standard defines as the minimum stuff you need to declare to sell the product you know , and and perhaps the amount of tests .
Or perhaps the reason why we don't have such things is because maybe the manufacturers do not have any reason or good good enough reason to actually pursue that , because the regulatory system that is created allows them to obtain their goal , which is selling the products .
I wonder to what extent we're limited by the fact that it's the manufacturers responsible for obtaining the certification and characteristics of the products , and when they do that , it relates to their own goals , right , perhaps not for all manufacturers , but I would assume for most their own goals right .
Perhaps not for all manufacturers , but I would assume for most . Well , there are manufacturers that will go beyond the test to prove that they have a very excellent product to gain market . Of course there are , but you know , the general picture is , of course , that you fulfill your S and then you could put a C mark on your product .
You can sell it off the market . This is a or should I call this a core . The regulators play a big role here . That is the demand of what do they want ?
And it's not only the regulators , it's the , for example , insurance companies that could further and say we see now a lot of insurance cases where there are fires here and we want something better than this regulation . And then something happens . But there somewhere must be also a demand , or you see a catastrophe , fire .
You know , I guess , the regulation in the UK they are developing quickly now due to the Grenfell case and , for example , in shipping , the fire in the Scandinavian Star many years ago that started the development of the IMO requirements and rules for ships . So they go hand in hand .
You have the manufacturer , you have the market and you have the regulator and you have the fire safety , engineering , people , it sort of all acts together pushing forward to better fire safety .
Another thing that comes to my mind when thinking about the entire fire safety system . The characteristic is like the final stage of the process and there's usually a pathway leading to that characteristic pathway that sometimes is a simple success . Someone you know develops a product , obtains the characteristic they've hoped for and they're done .
Sometimes it's a bumpy road where the product failed in many ways that they did not expect . They have to fix stuff , you know , change stuff and then obtain their characteristic , but the end user has no idea about it . The end user also has no idea .
If it barely made the test , or it made it easily , with confidence , it should work for 30 minutes , work for 50 , right , and that's a huge . Now , is there any way because that's a huge ? Uh , now , is there any way ?
Because there's a ton of knowledge in there , a ton of knowledge related to the , to the behavior of products and and a ton of stuff that we could extrapolate , perhaps the entire buildings , if we understand failures and the reasons why things do not pass the tests .
I wonder if , uh , from your experience now , now to tap from your experience now , now to tap from your experience , maybe in the forum , because you've also dealt with a ton of different laboratories . Are we even able to tap into this knowledge ever , do you think ? What do you mean ?
Having our data published , or what I understand , you cannot just publish the data because it's copyrighted , it's , it's owned by the manufacturer . It perhaps you know , it perhaps has some secret information in it that you cannot share . But it's not just data , it's knowledge . You know , if you understand how systems fail , you perhaps can make better regulation .
You perhaps can educate the user better , you perhaps can build something nice . But this knowledge I'm also working in a test lab and I understand like how much we learn as the test lab employees from failed experiments , from failed uh tests , yeah .
So I wonder if there's any way that we could , you know , somehow share this with the community , because it's it's knowledge , it's , it's , yeah , it's something that could be useful . Yeah , it could be very useful .
I mean laboratories . They have knowledge . You're testing something and you see what the failure mechanism is . You can also see how you can improve that kind of a problem . You see things like that , I guess and this has to go through research , like Brandsforge , who I'm also representing , who are funding research products . That will be the way to go .
You know , to some products describing failure mechanisms of product . That's the way to go . I think you could use that and then you could use also the experience from laboratories and put them together with universities and so on and so forth to produce that kind of a knowledge . I think that will be very , very helpful if you could go on in that route .
I think , of course , obtaining new funding for projects like that is a very interesting way and definitely something could be done . I thought more about the already existing , you know , thousands and thousands of test reports and plots of temperature in function of time and and other figures and small grass that are getting dust in laboratories over the world .
I'm not sure if there still needs to protect data that was collected 20 years ago and perhaps we could today with big data and AI , perhaps we could still learn something from that collection .
Yeah , I think that would be very , very good if you could do that . You need to change the law or something like that because it's proprietary data , but I mean , if you could get hold of that , that would be extremely valuable .
I know you know , in the development of the European system we made 1,500 tests , something like that which is wow , that's not a lot compared to what you would like to have if you want to go into that direction .
There are , say , 60 laboratories that are notified to the European Commission now producing documents that are legal in the entire European Union and they are testing , you know , every day . I don't know how many hundreds of thousands test units last 25 years that are around .
So that will be big data and that will be very helpful if you can get a hold of some of that .
I'm going to be picking brains of people . Maybe one day we will find a way in which you can do it safely and not cause damage to anyone's property , but perhaps build something nice for everyone around .
Another question that relates kind of to that , if I wanted to dig into data from standardized tests , the standardized test also , you know , contains specific performance objectives or defines how to pass that test-based file criteria , and in some way those things drive the design of the products .
I wonder if you share the same opinion that the standards in some way shape the products as well , because people design them to pass the tests right .
Yeah , it does , of course , because that's one of the aims of the standard . You know that is to influence the product's behavior . But it also goes hand in hand with the regulations . You know . You know you ask for certain performance , high performance . You will push the products being put on the market in your country to fulfill that requirement .
So it influences the products , of course it does .
How does it influence innovation , growth development ? Because if there's a well-established standard , it doesn't mean that there are no other ways to obtain a characteristic that would be more feasible , like instead of characteristic A , someone could come with another one that could be more representative for a specific end-use condition .
But it may be challenging for them to get that done because everyone standardizes or declares class within the other testing regime . It's very difficult to you know . Once this is established and once this is pretty much ruling the market , it's very difficult to break out of that . How do you see developments in that related to innovation ?
Well , you need to . If you go back and look at a standard , it has , as it goes from a fire scenario that you select , that fire scenario has to be reasonable . You know , if you are saying I'm going to do a test here for testing linings , classifying them , I don't put the candle towards the wall . You know that would give me no results .
You have to have a fire scenario that's reasonable , and that's extremely difficult because in the real world there are millions of scenarios .
You have to pick something that is reasonable , useful , and then you have to develop your standard that has to be reproducible , useful , and then you have to develop your standard that has to be reproducible , and so on and so forth . Some sort of validation you need . But that can be extended , or should , I think , be extended .
So the system you have now should develop to be extended . Applications of , say , there are standards for that as well , and so you should allow and you should develop the system . But you still can do that now . I mean you could produce a product that is being proven through fire safety engineering to be very useful for application .
Then you can say that happens in the shipping area , of course . So yeah , I mean you can do that already today .
That depends , then , on special niche products that you can use in that way , of course , but I think for the bulk of the products in Europe you need to extend the application of the declarations of all the products and build what's more generalized properties perhaps ?
And how about applying standards for specific scenarios ? The thing most perhaps vivid example is the use of SBI or Euroclass system for performance of facades .
Again , you know that's that's very far from the original intention of SBI and I also had Rudolf Amirlo in here who told me that facade system sorry , that facade was the next one to be regulated after Euroclasses . It just didn't happen at that time . But still we have examples like that .
Perhaps the way we use it goes a little bit too far from the original scenario , from this original representative , fhir there , when the standard was created here , do you see need to rapidly develop new standards ?
Is it more a need for regulations and the way what we allow to be used , the way what we allow to be used , or perhaps instead of that , we need to use fire engineering and engineering judgment or modeling to , to extrapolate , because again , in the world of rapid innovation , we face these things all the time and and they come quicker and quicker new solutions
that escape existing regulatory regimes yeah , I , I mean
¶ Standards Validation in Fire Safety
you're right .
You're rudely perfectly right about the facades and the SPI test . The SPI test was developed for hires in rooms and was validating against the reference scenario and the reference scenarios in Turnaland was deemed to be good enough to represent real buildings , so you could go that way .
Facades was seen during that time as another scenario to be good enough to represent real buildings , so you could go that way . Facades was seen during that time as another scenario that SPI was not useful for and it's not useful for that . So if you use it for facades , you really don't know what you're doing .
So I guess that's why you're getting a facade test now , sort of 20 years too late . But it's important I think to it's about education as well to explain the systems , what is it good for and what are the limits , and nothing of this is absolute . Fire safety , you know , is a moving target , as you're saying , and you should .
I think , as you say , it's a very good idea . If you can put together modeling and testing the standards of the modeling world and amalgamate them , that will be very fruitful . I think , Now there are different worlds to a large extent , which is not too good .
You've mentioned validation multiple times , so perhaps let's talk about what are the features of a really good , successful standard . If you had to define what makes a standard successful , what would be the key characteristics of a good standard ?
Right , that's a long list . Talking , then , about product standards RH5 , for the European system , and I worked a lot with that , you know , together with the regulators and the markets and everything .
And the first thing you know is there must be a demand for the standard , there must be a regulatory demand , there must be a market demand , something like that Regulatories . There are regulators , but there are also insurance companies and so on . The UL has a number of standards , for example SM as well , and SM , by the way , they are doing this .
They are using modeling , together with their testing , to handle their product , which is the insurance , which is very clever . So you need that .
And then you say , okay , then I'm going to make kind of standard and I need to validate that standard , because you know there are thousands of standards out there and some of them , a fair amount of them , are not validated .
They are just sort of , you know , you put a booms and booms into something and then you say 30% must be bad , 30% must be good and then we have new jobs . And you move to evaluate , which is , you know , a science by its own because the real life is extremely complicated .
So how it's done for linings and pipe insulation and cables in the European system and floorings as well , the European system correction , I used to say I have this reference scenario which , for the SBI , is the rule of fire .
So I make large gauge experiments in my rule of fire and I say reference scenario represents the real world , which of course is not true , but it's you know , it's good enough . So you say that is good enough . And then I validate my test against that .
And you know , if I have an ignition test , I say my scenario , my fire scenario , is , you know , the cattle standing under a cut . That's my risk scenario , so I'll make a test for that , and so on and so forth .
So validation in here would be making sure that the standard really represents what it's supposed to represent , be it a real-life scenario or some specific objective .
Yeah , you need to be able to explain what you're trying to do .
This is also important , you know , for preventing the things like using the standard in an incorrect way , because if you had it well validated , it should not be used in an incorrect scenario . Exactly , exactly .
Exactly so . It's very important . And I mean , if you take the facade , it's easy to see what you're talking about here . The validation is you build up the facade and then you test it , and it's not going to be perfect either , because there are variants of all things , but hopefully it's good enough . So that's your validation .
And then you have this thing when this stand-up test doesn't have to work in the real world , which means it must be repeatable or reproducible . If you take the SPI , then there are what did I say about 60 laboratories that are notified and hundreds of them that are testing and putting out documents on the market in more than 30 countries all the time .
Now , if your test is not repeatable or reproducible enough , the system will collapse very quickly and then you can do this . I mean , there are again standards for measuring repeatability and reproducibility . So you do that , you do round robins , a lot of work on that .
The SPI number two round robins , I think , was extremely Is it something that's an ongoing effort , like it happens also also , or you do it just when you develop the standard and then you say , okay , it's fine , or you just you know repeat the round robins every five years or so . I think eagles is doing that right yeah , you do .
You do yes , because your accreditation requires you to do this kind of work constantly . And also , you know , do the things like ? For example , something called the Group of Multified Bodies under the commission that meets .
You know the system that meets to talk about how do we run this system and what is the problem that has occurred now and how do we handle that on a European basis .
And then there is another one that is EGOR , a laboratories organization that do technical work with the standards all the time , improve the standard , and then the standards come back and you improve them , and so on and so forth . You look at the SPI standard , for example . It's 100 pages of instructions how to test .
You have to do work all the time there , because that is extremely important , because if a standard is not reproducible , you know people will discover that you get different results in different cultures and different laboratories and things will be problematic , but I mean it must be difficult to do it in a perfect way .
How do you accommodate for little differences that can be ? Is there a range of , are there reference scenarios and there's a range of outcomes in the calibration test , for example , that you can have ? That tells you okay , this apparatus built in the new laboratory represents the 60 apparatus that already exist across Europe .
Or how does one building a new laboratory , assure that they become one , Because they were not part of a round-robin , for example ?
Oh , they do . But first of all , the standard is extremely detailed on how the apparatus should look alike , and there are manufacturers in Europe . It's just a few of them two , three or whatever that delivers . So you have some sort of ability there that you get the same similar apparatus .
At the beginning of the SBI there was one manufacturer doing apparatuses for those laboratories , and how do you do it ?
Well , during your accreditation procedure , you have to show that you are able to do this test according to the standard , that you have a quality assurance system that could include things like that reference testing within other laboratories , and so on and so forth .
There is the accreditation procedure that will go in the level of details that allows to recreation of the test method , unambiguity in the description of the procedure , the detailing that allows someone to take this standard and , from start to the end , just follow the instructions there and obtain the test . I guess that's also a characteristic of a good standard .
It should provide all of that , because if it does not , then it's a challenge for this reproducibility right .
No , that's right . But that's also why you need organizations like EGOR that are continuously working with these things , because they are developing , there are new products , there are new programs , there are new , you know .
So you have to have a system that is continuously working , improving , changing the standard , doing new round robins and so on , have to sort of take care of the system .
How about the market impact ? Because I also that's something I took from the interview with Rudolf he was mentioning there was a political will to do that and we were discussing the SBI and Euroclass system . I was wondering , like , to what extent the political will should be , you know , something shaping a technical system , but I guess the impact on the market .
The market must need the standard and the standard must not destroy the market at the same time . Right , it's some sort of symbiosis .
Yeah , it's a symbiosis .
¶ Challenges in Developing Industry Standards
I learned when I was working with this , creating the system , that you need three partners at least . You need the regulators , because they will ask for it . That will require the demand . We need this . You know which was . You know the commission and the demand . We need this . You know which was . You know commission and the sky and the regulators .
And you need the industry . You know , because they have , they know the rules of their products and also and they have also technical capabilities , they know their products and you need the technical people , the laboratories , and if you want to create a large system that will be successful , I think you need the three of these partners At least .
You need , I should add , also you need the science , you need the modeling , you need that sort of thing , the understanding of high dynamics , of course . So not alone . You cannot be alone here representing the product . You cannot be alone here representing the world .
Yeah , I guess it would be a challenging pathway . If I stand here today , draw a new way of testing , let's say facades on a piece of paper and then say to the world this is the new standard , that would be quite challenging to build the support with .
I observed the development of European standards for facades and how much work that is to actually create a new regulatory regime standard that has all the features that you mentioned that will be widely accepted . And actually I worry it will not be widely accepted . That's a worry for me because I think that it will be too costly .
Like , okay , my perspective as a research laboratory , I I would take it that's a that's a good business opportunity , right . So I'm I'm happy to deliver tests of this magnitude , complexity and at this budgets that we look at .
But I also know that clients will perhaps do everything in their power , you know , to not do that test more often than they really absolutely necessarily need , because it's just going to be super expensive . So I wonder , like is this something that also should be considered when you develop a standard ? Like , what will be the cost ?
Like , will the cost justify the gains you get from the regulatory system ? Of course , if it is your ticket to sell on the market , then that's the only way . It's not that you have a choice , but I wonder if we should also consider that .
Yeah , you have to , and it has to be acceptable by the authorities and it has to be acceptable by the market , by the authorities , and it has to be acceptable by the market . As you say , if the market says we will not have this large scale test , we can't have it , and so on and so forth .
You need to either have a very strong regulator , like the European Union that you know you make mandatory , everything mandatory , and then the politicians agree , the European agree to it , and part of that is the market and you need to have acceptability there .
It cannot be too complicated and too expensive either , but it has to do a job and if you look at it in general , the test also must be able to test all the building products according to those test score , which is another thing that is quite difficult .
And what about the time factor , the time characteristic , how long it takes to build a new standard from scratch ? You said it starts with the demand . So let's say there is an indication that demand will be there . We need a new standard on X , Y , Z . How long is the process to get it done realistically ?
That's a good question . I should take a complicated thing . I guess the work on the European system for reaction to fire was on for , let's say , 10 years before there was a decision by the commission . This is how it's going to be and they're going to work with it , so it can be .
It can be a very long process Depends on , you know , the standardization organizations . Then can be very slow , Depends what the funding is , what the demand is and what the you know your discussion with industry can be very lengthy , so it's a long process . There are a lot of countries that had to agree , so it's not quick .
And what happens in between you know . So if you define there's a demand , it means there's a real need , that we need some specific characteristics to design fire solutions . Right , and standard is not yet there and it perhaps will be out there . If I we're really pushing the facades of people , sorry guys , but it's .
It's a nice example how long we are talking about the facade standard , at least since grenfell . You know it's very . It happened very shortly after Grenfell that we started looking into European regulatory regime and Grenfell is already what ? eight years ago , seven years ago long time ago and and the standard is still way ahead .
And yet every day we need to design new facades . So how can engineers cope in the absence of the design of the standard ? And in this intermediate period , right , because the market exists , the users exist , it's just the standard . And in this intermediate period , right , because the market exists , the users exist , it's just the standard that it's not there yet .
Now , right , what you need to ? You need to use things like you know , fire safety engineering , the national test that you have . You have a national test in Poland , you have a national test in the Nordic countries , you have a national test in the UKic countries and you have a national test in the UK since many years on croissants .
So the demand is also a driving force . I mean , if the demand is very high , like you know again for ships the fire in the Scandinavian Star your regulations can leak it because people realize we need something here now . But you know you really need the fire science and the fire safety engineering to go in there , work together with standards .
And another feature of standard that comes to my mind if eventually we figure out that some part of the standard is not really working as intended , how much effort did this to fix a standard , you know , to change a substantial thing in the standard To , I don't know , change the criteria of assessment or to respond to a new need , you know , because it's also
like you cannot expect that there's a standard done in like 1970 and expect that in 2024 , it will still , you know , be representative for the demand that's created in the 70s at the first hand . So how do those standards evolve and respond to the new needs that appear while they're already , you know , in power ?
already in power . The system is the standardization process , and you could add things like the group of modified bodies could produce a document saying for this kind of product , this is the way we are going to test it , and so on . There is a process , and sometimes very slow , and sometimes it can be fast . Then again , it depends on the demand .
It's a negotiation between 30 countries when you do something like that , which can be extremely slow or fast ?
can it define slow or fast in years , like three years would be slow or fast ?
I don't know , I wouldn't say I would . I mean , I mean if , if your problem is very large , I mean this can go , you know , within a year or so the problem is , you know , not extremely large . It could take forever you have everything there .
The last thing I wanted to ask is how does this work with performance-based design ? How does this work with performance-based design ? So I assume that in the prescriptive world , the role of the regulator would be to use those characteristics of a product in order to say , okay , only product of this specific characteristic is allowed and anything less is not allowed .
Right , it's just like a gate In performance-based design . If I want to design something , I would perhaps need a different sort of data . Perhaps I don't need a class , Maybe I need heat of combustion . You know , Maybe I'm not interested in information if it's incombustible or not .
I perhaps would just like the value , because it allows me to engineer with and for any other product , for any other characteristic , there's a continuity of stuff that you measure and then there are brackets in which you put the product based on the results of the test .
How do you feel this works with the performance-based design , this standardization regime and use of the standards tests ?
Well , the standard is not the regulation . You're building code . In your country you're building regulation can be performance-based , like the Swedish-speaking building regulations . So you're not obliged . There are no really gates .
In that way you could do whatever you like , provided that you sort of can stand for it and do the proper fire safety engineering work and so on . So you have that mechanism and then the standards can be helpful because they declare a certain property of the product . If it goes into that context , it's going to be helpful .
Property of the product If it goes into that context , it's going to be helpful . If you have a prescriptive regulation , you tend to be in trouble for the developer because then you have to add these gates all the time and cannot build a spherical building because your building code assumes that buildings are not spherical , that sort of thing .
Is this something that , when designing a new standard , you look into Like in what kind of regulatory systems it will be used and how will it work with those regulatory systems ? Or is it something you don't care about and it's up to the regulators to figure out a way to incorporate the standard in their own ?
system . Ideally you don't care about how it's going to be used , provided that it's validated and you can explain what good it makes . And then it's up to the regulator to use the standard or not , like the ISO standards that are voluntary .
So people that use these ISO standards , they sort of pick them some of them and use them , like IMO is doing for shipping .
And on the other hand , when you're making the European system , you have regulations around Europe that were very different , very different tests giving very different results , and so you have to have a dialogue with the regulator because he would need something that he can use . You know .
But on the other hand , you're not constructing a standard to fit a regulation that will not work very well . You construct the standards on the merits of the product you want to test and the properties of the products you're getting .
Very good , Thank you . Thank you very much . I think on this we can close this topic . It was a very interesting and perhaps challenging even discussion . It's not that the standardization regime is not that easy . I mean it's something that surrounds us .
I don't think that many people understand how it works , so I appreciate sharing the kitchen and discussing the properties of a good standard . Thank you very much for coming here and looking forward to see you again , thank you .
Thank you very much . It was my pleasure talking to you .
That's it . That was the kitchen , the background of what standardization looks like , what's the effort all over for and how do we make a good standard ?
¶ The Importance of Testing Standards
I think it was very interesting to see Bjorn's perspective of what makes a good standard . It's not just representation of a fire I mean , he used the term , it's good enough as a representation of a fire but importantly it has to be possible to repeat the test across multiple laboratories . The test must reflect what's being tested .
The test must be very clearly defined , there must be the need for the test All of these components that influence if a test standard is successful or not . And indeed it takes a lot of time . If I ask him whether three years is short or long , I think three years would be very short for implementation or significant update of a standard .
Unfortunately , these things are very reactive to what's happening in the very fast market we have now and some things that simply are paced out by innovation .
On one hand , I'm not a big fan of certifying because I know that it lacks so much behind , but on the other hand , it's fundamental for applying five safety engineering at large , for multiple projects by multiple people , that we have those models . So that would be it for today's episode .
I hope you have enjoyed this talk and I'm looking forward to see you here next week , next wednesday , same place , same time . See you bye , thank you .