A new ASTM International standard will be used to quantify the uncertainty associated with measurements in fire tests in a consistent manner, while a proposed new E05 standard, WK14401, Evaluating the Fire Test Response of Deck Structures to Burning Brands, will determine the fire test response of deck structures.
 
ASTM E 2536, Guide for Assessment of Measurement Uncertainty in Fire Tests
 
“Users of fire test data often need a quantitative indication of the quality of the data presented in a test report,” says Marc Janssens, director of the fire technology department at Southwest Research Institute and first vice chairman of Committee E05. “This quantitative indication is referred to as the measurement uncertainty.”
 
E 2536 will be used to quantify the uncertainty associated with measurements in fire tests in a consistent manner. The procedures contained in the new standard are most appropriate for the more engineering-based fire test methods intended for fire safety engineering calculations and particularly those that give results in engineering units and that can be used for fire safety engineering calculations.
 
Janssens says that the subcommittee is now working on a new proposed standard that will supplement E 2536. The new standard would give guidance on the assessment of uncertainty for other fire test methods. It is important to understand that the new standard addresses uncertainty, which is different from precision, which has been addressed for many years.
 
“The subject of E 2536 is the uncertainty of fire test results,” says Janssens. “This is more complex than quantifying the uncertainty of individual measurements. Results from many fire tests are qualitative instead of quantitative and their uncertainty cannot be determined. In some cases the results are quantitative, but the effect of some sources of uncertainty cannot be quantified.”
 
ASTM International standards are available for purchase from Customer Service (phone: 610/832-9585; https://www.astm.org/contact/) or at www.astm.org.

For further technical information, contact Marc Janssens, Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, Texas (phone: 210/210-5226; marc.janssens@swri.org).

ASTM WK14401, Evaluating the Fire Test Response of Deck Structures to Burning Brands
 
Subcommittee E05.22 on Surface Burning is developing a proposed new standard, WK14401, that will determine the fire test response of decks or other horizontal ancillary structures attached to or in close proximity to primary structures. While E05.22 member Paul Hough says that the task group working on WK14401 is already well-represented by manufacturers, regulators, wildland fire experts and fire test experts, additional input from all interested parties is welcome.
 
Deck board manufacturers and building code officials would be the primary users of WK14401. “We hope that WK14401 will be useful in determining the relative hazard of different types of decking materials and that it could eventually be adopted by the building codes, especially in California and urban interface areas,” says Hough.

For further technical information, contact Paul Hough, Armstrong World Industries, Inc., Lancaster, Pa. (phone: 717/396-4195; pahough@armstrong.org). Committee E05 will meet Dec. 2-5 at the December Committee Week in Norfolk, Va. For membership or meeting information, contact Thomas O’Toole, manager, Technical Committee Operations, ASTM International (phone: 610/832-9739; totoole@astm.org).

Release #7709