European Construction Products Directive (CPD)
To take away any technical obstruction of the trade within the European Union as a result of the different and often protectionist national regulations, the Construction Products Directive was established in 1989. This CPD harmonises the conditions that are applicable to the different European member states to place a construction product on the market.
The conditions a construction has to fulfil are summarized in six essential characteristics. One essential condition for products used in constructions is that they do not endanger the construction’s fulfilment of these six characteristics.
Assessment of the fire resistance of an incorporated fire resistant wall penetration by means of tests
What fire safety is concerned there were (and still are) great differences between national standards regarding the desired performances of products. A harmonisation in the definition of the fire resistance of construction elements was necessary.
To cover all products and all scenarios a range of standard tests was developed to define the fire resistance. Per type of element, a separate test is required because e.g. the conditions to test a fire damper differ from the ones to test fire resistant construction elements.
These European test standards are grouped in families depending on the kind of test, the kind of product and sometimes on the combination of the two.
- Groupe EN 1363 (Technical information on how to perform the fire tests written specifically for laboratories)
- Groupe EN 1364 (Non supportive walls e.g. the testing of flexible walls)
- Groupe EN 1365 (Supportive walls –e.g. floor mounting)
- Groupe EN 1366 (Equipment of buildings – e.g. fire dampers – EN 1366-2; fire resistant construction elements EN 1366-3 and smoke evacuation dampers – EN 1366-10)
- Groupe EN 1634 (fire doors and ‘fire doors and shutters’)
To perform a fire resistant test on a product, the standard stated by the General Requirements needs to be used as a basis (EN 1363-1) as well as the test method typical of the construction element that needs to be tested.
Apart from this, European classification standards in the series of EN 13501 were defined aiming at a uniform assessment of the fire resistance by means of tests.
- EN 13501-2: fire classification of construction products and building elements – part 2: classification based on the results of fire resistance tests (excl. ventilation applications)
- EN 13501-3: fire classification of construction products and building elements – part 3: classification based on the results of fire resistance tests on products and parts of installations in buildings: fire resistant ducts and dampers
- EN 13501-4: fire classification of construction products and building elements – part 4: classification based on the results of fire resistance tests on part of smoke evacuation installations
For the testing of a certain fire resistant product there are 3 standards followed by 2 reports: a test report referring to the general standard EN 1363-1, a specific test standard and a second report a.k.a. the classification report.
The classification report summarizes briefly the achieved criteria, the complete description of the test set-up and which kind of documents the laboratories used as basis for the classification (test reports, extrapolation reports, technical advices,…). In short, the classification report is a much more legible document than the test reports which often count more than 50 pages.
Rf-Technologies is one of the first manufacturers to test their products according to these European test standards and so disposes of an elaborate number of European classification documents.
You can find an overview of the classification documents per product here .
European conformity and CE marking
CE marking represents the ultimate step to certify that a product complies with all relevant European standards.