Overview
ISO/TR 11696-2:1999 - Uses of reaction to fire test results, Part 2: Fire hazard assessment of construction products - provides guidance on how to use reaction-to-fire test data and other relevant information to assess potential fire hazards and risks associated with construction products and their end‑use environments. The technical report helps users interpret test outputs, suggests procedures for expressing results, and offers a simplified decision‑tree approach for risk-informed judgments when full fire modelling is not available.
Key Topics
- Scope and purpose: Guidance for manufacturers, designers, specifiers, regulators, wholesalers/retailers and consumer representatives on using reaction-to-fire test data for hazard assessment.
- Fire characteristics: Definitions of fire stages (initiation, growth, flashover, fully developed, decay) and how product contribution varies by stage.
- Decision tree for hazard assessment: Five-step procedure to structure an assessment:
- Step 1 - Definition of fire scenario (probabilistic)
- Step 2 - Ignition hazard (deterministic)
- Step 3 - Fire growth hazard (deterministic)
- Step 4 - Smoke (deterministic)
- Step 5 - Rate of hazard development (probabilistic)
- Factors affecting fire growth: Material thermal properties (e.g., thermal inertia), configuration, ventilation, fuel load and adjacency effects.
- Interpretation of test data: How to combine results from ISO reaction-to-fire tests (cone calorimeter, smoke tests, spread of flame, non‑combustibility tests) to inform hazard judgments.
- Supporting examples and tools: Annexes include a quantitative assessment example, guidelines for classification data from ISO fire tests, and an example visibility calculation in a burning building.
Practical Applications
- Product safety assessment: Use test outputs to evaluate how a material or product will contribute to ignition, flame spread, heat release and smoke in realistic scenarios.
- Specification and selection: Inform material selection for interior linings, façade components, floor coverings and transport interiors by interpreting ISO reaction‑to‑fire results.
- Regulatory and conformity support: Assist regulators and specifiers in translating test data into meaningful hazard control decisions where prescriptive rules or performance criteria are required.
- Risk communication: Provide manufacturers and consumer representatives with clear, defensible rationale about fire performance without needing complex computational models.
Who Uses This Standard
- Materials manufacturers and converters
- Product designers and architects
- Wholesalers, retailers and specifiers
- Regulatory bodies, fire authorities and compliance engineers
- Consumer safety organizations
Related Standards
ISO/TR 11696-2 references and complements other ISO/IEC test methods, including:
Practical, test‑driven fire hazard assessment using ISO/TR 11696-2:1999 helps bridge laboratory reaction‑to‑fire data and real‑world safety decisions for construction products. Keywords: ISO/TR 11696-2:1999, reaction to fire test, fire hazard assessment, construction products, fire test data, smoke production, ignition, fire growth.
Open preview (PDF)Uses of reaction to fire test results — Part 2: Fire hazard assessment of construction products
