ISO/TS 3814:2014

TECHNICAL ISO/TS
SPECIFICATION 3814
First edition
2014-03-01
Standard tests for measuring reaction-
to-fire of products and materials —
Their development and application
Essais de mesurage de la “réaction au feu” des matériaux de
bâtiment — Leur élaboration et leur application
Reference number
©
ISO 2014
© ISO 2014
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ii © ISO 2014 – All rights reserved

Contents Page
Foreword .iv
Introduction .v
1 Scope . 1
2 Normative references . 1
3 Terms and definitions . 2
4 Development of reaction to fire tests . 2
5 Fire development and growth. 3
5.1 General context . 3
5.2 Fire performance of products . 4
6 Fire hazard assessment . 5
6.1 A determination that a particular product can be potentially hazardous in a fire . 5
6.2 An estimate of the ignitability of the product being ignited under particular conditions . 6
6.3 Knowledge of the reaction of the product in various fire situations . 6
6.4 Uses of reaction-to-fire tests in reducing fire hazard in different areas. 7
7 Future developments and conclusions . 8
Annex A (informative) Reaction-to-fire tests .10
Bibliography .19
Foreword
ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) is a worldwide federation of national standards
bodies (ISO member bodies). The work of preparing International Standards is normally carried out
through ISO technical committees. Each member body interested in a subject for which a technical
committee has been established has the right to be represented on that committee. International
organizations, governmental and non-governmental, in liaison with ISO, also take part in the work.
ISO collaborates closely with the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) on all matters of
electrotechnical standardization.
The procedures used to develop this document and those intended for its further maintenance are
described in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1. In particular the different approval criteria needed for the
different types of ISO documents should be noted. This document was drafted in accordance with the
editorial rules of the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2 (see www.iso.org/directives).
Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of
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any patent rights identified during the development of the document will be in the Introduction and/or
on the ISO list of patent declarations received (see www.iso.org/patents).
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assessment, as well as information about ISO’s adherence to the WTO principles in the Technical Barriers
to Trade (TBT) see the following URL: Foreword - Supplementary information
The committee responsible for this document is ISO/TC 92, Fire safety, Subcommittee SC 1, Fire initiation
and growth.
This first edition cancels and replaces ISO/TR 3814:1989, which has been technically revised.
iv © ISO 2014 – All rights reserved

Introduction
A fire can constitute a hazard to both the structure, e.g. building, transport, and to its occupants, because
of the heat generated and the production of smoke and gaseous products of combustion. Consequently,
early codes and regulations for fire safety were designed to prevent rapid fire development and spread
within individual structures and also from one structure to another. These codes have since developed
into more complex laws governing public safety. Formerly, a distinction was made between the
protection of persons from fire and the protection of property, with more importance being placed upon
the latter. However, this distinction becomes somewhat difficult to make when considering modern,
large-area, high-rise structures, where protection of the occupants in-place needs to be substituted for
rapid evacuation. Restrictions on the use of combustible materials, compartmentalization, early fire
detection, and suppression are key factors for in-place protection of occupants and are also important
for minimizing property loss.
Real-scale fire tests are the ideal way to quantify the fire hazard of products. However, such tests are
impractical in the vast majority of cases. The reaction-to-fire tests developed by ISO/TC 92/SC 1 seek
to quantify aspects of the fire hazard that may result from the use of particular products in particular
applications in a meaningful, cost-effective, and reproducible way.
This Technical Specification describes the work being carried out by ISO/TC 92/SC 1 on the development
of tests and guidance for the “reaction-to-fire” of products and discusses the role and limitation of these
tests in reducing fire danger.
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION ISO/TS 3814:2014(E)
Standard tests for measuring reaction-to-fire of products
and materials — Their development and application
1 Scope
This Technical Specification describes the relevance of, and how to apply, the fire tests developed by
ISO/TC 92/SC 1 so that they can be used effectively to reduce the hazard of fire. Each reaction-to-fire
test is related to the different phases of a developing fire in buildings and transport and has to be seen
in its relation to the fire scenario and phase of the fire it represents. Some reaction-to-fire tests are
proposed to assess the fire hazard in those different phases.
Although this Technical Specification does not address smouldering combustion, this does not mean
that smouldering is not important in some fire development situations. However, there are no tests in
Subcommittee 1 (SC 1) which currently address this phenomenon.
This Technical Specification is aimed at indicating those ISO tests which produce relevant and useful
data for fire safety engineering and those which do not. This Technical Specification is also of use to
regulators, people who are performing reaction-to-fire tests including manufacturers and all people
who are responsible to create, control, and assess fire safety concepts.
2 Normative references
The following documents, in whole or in part, are normatively referenced in this document and are
indispensable for its application. For dated references, only the edition cited applies. For undated
references, the latest edition of the referenced document (including any amendments) applies
ISO 5657, Reaction to fire tests — Ignitability of building products using a radiant heat source
ISO/TS 5658-1, Reaction to fire tests — Spread of flame — Part 1: Guidance on flame spread
ISO 5658-2, Reaction to fire tests — Spread of flame — Part 2: Lateral spread on building and transport
products in vertical configuration
ISO 5658-4, Reaction to fire tests — Spread of flame — Part 4: Intermediate-scale test of vertical spread of
flame with vertically oriented specimen
ISO 5660-1, Reaction-to-fire tests — Heat release, smoke production and mass loss rate — Part 1: Heat
release rate (cone calorimeter method) and smoke production rate (dynamic measurement)
ISO 9239-1, Reaction to fire tests for floorings — Part 1: Determination of the burning behaviour using a
radiant heat source
ISO 9239-2, Reaction to fire tests for floorings — Part 2: Determination of flame spread at a heat flux level
of 25 kW/m2
ISO 9705-1, Reaction to fire tests — Room corner test for wall and ceiling lining products — Part 1: Test
method for a small room configuration
ISO/TR 9705-2, Reaction-to-fire tests — Full-scale room tests for surface products — Part 2: Technical
background and guidance
ISO/TR 11925-1, Reaction to fire tests — Ignitability of building products subjected to direct impingement
of flame — Part 1: Guidance on ignitability
ISO 11925-2, Reaction to fire tests — Ignitability of products subjected to direct impingement of flame —
Part 2: Single-flame source test
ISO 11925-3, Reaction to fire tests — Ignitability of building products subjected to direct impingement of
flame — Part 3: Multi-source test
ISO 12136, Reaction to fire tests — Measurement of material properties using a fire propagation apparatus
ISO/TR 13387-1, Fire safety engineering — Part 1: Application of fire performance concepts to design
objectives
ISO/TR 13387-2, Fire safety engineering — Part 2: Design fire scenarios and design fires
ISO/TR 13387-3, Fire safety engineering — Part 3: Assessment and verification of mathematical fire models
ISO 13784-1, Reaction to fire test for sandwich panel building systems — Part 1: Small room test
ISO 13784-2, Reaction-to-fire tests for sandwich panel building systems — Part 2: Test method for large
rooms
ISO 13785-1, Reaction-to-fire tests for façades — Part 1: Intermediate-scale test
ISO 13785-2, Reaction-to-fire tests for façades — Part 2: Large-scale test
ISO 13943, Fire safety — Vocabulary
ISO 14696, Reaction-to-fire tests — Determination of fire and thermal parameters of materials, products
and assemblies using an intermediate-scale calorimeter (ICAL)
ISO 14934-1, Fire tests — Calibration and use of heat flux meters — Part 1: General principles
ISO 14934-2, Fire tests — Calibration and use of heat flux meters — Part 2: Primary calibration methods
ISO 14934-3, Fire tests — Calibration and use of heat flux meters — Part 3: Secondary calibration method
ISO 14934-4, Fire tests — Calibration and use of heat flux meters — Part 4: Guidance on the use of heat flux
meters in fire tests
ISO/TS 16732, Fire Safety Engineering ― Guidance on fire risk assessment
ISO/TR 17252, Fire tests — Applicability of reaction to fire tests to fire modelling and fire safety engineering
ISO/TS 17431, Fire tests — Reduced-scale model box test
ISO 20632, Reaction-to-fire tests — Small room test for pipe insulation products or systems
ISO/TS 22269, Reaction to fire tests — Fire growth — Full-scale test for stairs and stair coverings
ISO 24473, Fire tests — Open calorimetry — Measurement of the rate of production of heat and combustion
products for fires of up to 40 MW
3 Terms and definitions
For the purposes of this document, the terms and definitions given in ISO 13943 apply.
NOTE ISO 13943 defines reaction-to-fire as the response of a product (material) in contributing by its own
decomposition to a fire to which it is exposed, under specified conditions.
4 Development of reaction to fire tests
Authorities responsible for fire safety in many countries have been concerned over the years about
the safe use of materials in the construction environment. A number of national test methods have,
therefore, been developed to provide the data necessary to identify the important characteristics of
2 © ISO 2014 – All rights reserved

materials and products under fire conditions. These tests, most of which are of laboratory scale, are
collectively referred to as “reaction-to-fire” tests and include
— ignitability,
— surface spread of flame,
— smoke development and obscuration,
— rate of heat release,
— non-combustibility, and
— corner, wall, and/or room fire development.
The original “reaction-to-fire” tests were generally developed with particular hazards, or fire situations,
in mind. For example, the predecessors of the moder
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