Smoke & fire campaigns

The European standard (EN 45545-2) and the French standard (NF F16-101) provide a classification system that specifies requirements for fire behavior of railway materials and products by categorizing them in different groups which have to fulfill specific “requirement sets”. The standards also include test methods for laboratories.

Moreover, the EN ISO/CEI 17025 “General requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories” standard imposes the participation of laboratories in a test campaign, which is a prerequisite to be an accredited laboratory. It is on this basis that an independent body has to organize the campaign and only CERTIFER is authorized to organize and assess the fire behavior test campaigns and inter-laboratory comparison in the railway fields.

We organizes for more than ten years an annual “inter-laboratory euro-comparison campaign on railway fire behavior tests”.

This campaign is available to all laboratories that are interested in providing their laboratory services in the railway sector. About 30-40 laboratories from Europe and around the world participate each year to the euro-comparison campaign.

The steps we oversee for the euro-comparison campaign are :

1. Preparation of the campaign
2. Launching of the annual campaign
3. Test performance
4. Compilation of results and analysis
5. Final reporting

The fire behavior tests

• Critical Flux at Extinguishment: CFE [ISO 5658-2] & CHF [EN ISO 9239-1]
• Maximum average rate of heat emission: MARHE [ISO 5660-1]
• Specific optical density of smoke at 4 min: Ds(4) [EN ISO 5659-2]
• Cumulative value of specific optical densities in the 1ST 4 min: VOF4 [EN ISO 5659-2]
• Conventional Index of Toxicity at 4 and 8 min: CITG [EN 45545-2 Annex C: method 1]
• Conventional Index of Toxicity: CITNlp [EN 45545-2 Annex C: method 2]
• Oxygen Index: OI [EN ISO 4589-2]
• Glow wire: EN 60695-2-11, NF F 16-101 and STM S001
• Cumulative value of specific optical densities in the 1ST 4 min: VOF4 [NFX 10-702 (1 to 5), NF F 16-101 & STM S001]
• Maximum specific optical density of smoke: Dm [NF X 10-702 (1 to 5), NF F 16-101 & STM S001]
• Maximum average rate of heat emission (MARHE) and maximum RHR on seat: ISO/TR 9705-2
• Maximum flame spread and flaming droplets: EN ISO 11925-2
• Height of charred zone front side and backside: EN 60332-3-24