Setting standards
TBWIC has added new tests to support the requirements of UAE Fire and Life Safety Code of Practice
The company’s Product Certification division, which supports Civil Defence Product Approval and is only a year old, has just crossed the 100 listings mark.
Thomas Bell-Wright International Consultants (TBWIC) was founded in the UAE in 1995, and has many firsts to its credit. They were the first façade consultants, the first laboratory with permanent curtain-wall testing equipment, the first fire-testing laboratory, and now the first certification body located in the Gulf region.
TBWIC has typically added new tests to support the requirements of the latest version of the UAE Fire and Life Safety Code of Practice. However, the test equipment currently on order or being commissioned will place the lab among the best in the world by the spring of next year.
The American test standard NFPA 285, which measures Fire Propagation in building Cladding Systems, has been a staple at TBW for several years. Among the new tests to be brought on line is the BS 8414, which is the equivalent standard for testing cladding in the U.K. and Australia, and the ASTM E2307, a test of the perimeter fire stops which prevent a fire from moving from one floor to another.
By the beginning of next year, TBWIC will be offering testing for extra-large doors, loadbearing walls, floors and ceilings, as well as ducts and many other products and systems for fire performance.
The company’s Product Certification division, which supports Civil Defence Product Approval and is only a year old, has just crossed the 100 listings mark. The image shows the evolution of TBWIC’s certification mark, which uses the Arabic translation of ‘certified’ designed into a falcon. Certification is a system of periodic monitoring of production to ensure that the product, which is delivered is the same as the one that was tested. This is not a trivial undertaking – but then everything the company does is in support of creating a safer world for people to live and work.
As an example, the certification scheme for fire rated doors goes a step further than what the international certification bodies do. For each project the fire doors are manufactured, the drawings are crosschecked against the drawings of tested and listed fire doors. Then numbered stainless steel labels are laser printed in-house and given to manufacturers to be fixed before the doors are shipped to the site. Any smart phone can scan the QR code, which links to the online certificate to verify the details of the door.