GEOTECHNICAL LABORATORY TESTING TO BS EN ISO 17892: Briefing Note (updated December 2015)

BSI recently published the first two Standards in the series BS EN ISO 17892 with a third standard to be published in the next few weeks. On the day they are published, they supersede the equivalent test methods in BS1377.  This note is intended to keep you updated on progress on further Standards in the series. The note will be updated regularly.

Background:

In 2004 CEN and ISO published 12 documents in the series EN ISO/TS 17892. These are Technical Specifications, not full Standards, and as such their use is not mandatory. In 2010 CEN and ISO agreed to upgrade these to full EN and ISO Standards.

With CEN leading, and with active ISO participation, CEN Technical Committee 341 (currently Chaired by the UK’s John Powell, and with BSI providing the Secretariat) appointed a Working Group (WG6, with the UK’s John Masters and then Roger Brown as Convenor, and Alastair McKenzie as Technical Editor) with a mandate to re-write the 12 TS documents so that they get wide-spread acceptance world-wide.

Process:

The WG has been working for several years, and has the target to complete all 12 by the end of 2017 ahead of a planned up-issue of Eurocode 7 (BS EN 1997-1 and BS EN 1997-2). The WG consists of technical experts from more than a dozen countries, who are working together to write the Standards encompassing good practice from around the World, using routinely available existing equipment.

Once the WG has produced an acceptable draft, it is put into the public domain for comments in a process called “Parallel Enquiry” (parallel because CEN and ISO run it in parallel, but independently). Draft Standards are in the public domain and available for comment for several months. The WG then gets the comments back to address, either to incorporate into the draft if they agree with them, or to give reasons not to if they disagree. Once the draft is revised, it then goes back to the CEN and ISO Member countries for Final Vote. If successful, CEN and ISO translate the Standard and publish simultaneously in English, French, German and Russian.

UK Implementation:

As members of CEN, the UK must adopt and publish the new Standard within 6 months of publication by CEN and ISO, and simultaneously must withdraw any existing conflicting National Standard. With the first two, BSI published them the same day as CEN and ISO.

Testing can continue to the equivalent BS1377 methods, for example if a contract with a client requires it, but if so, they will need to be reported as for example “BS1377-2, Clause 3.2 – Superseded”.

The list overleaf details the 12 Standards in preparation, and the current status of their progress towards publication.  Note that the final choice of which test procedures will be in the EN ISO Standard for permeability has not yet been confirmed. Other test methods might be added after these 12, but no decisions have been made yet on what tests these should be.

1. ISO (but not CEN or BS) published an incorrect version on 25/11/2015. The corrected version is due to be published 15/01/2016.
2. “Imminent” means within the next few months

Future of BS1377:

Four clauses as noted above in BS1377-2:1990 have been withdrawn already. BS1377 will need substantial updating as a result of the publication of the above new Standards. However amendments to BS1377 will lag behind the publication of the replacements, so for example if you buy a copy of BS1377 today, the four withdrawn clauses will still be present. BSI is currently reviewing what will happen to BS1377 in the long run. The 12 new EN ISO Standards do not cover all tests currently in BS1377, so some of it will presumably need to remain in some form or other.

Differences to BS1377:

The EN ISO 17892 Standards contain a number of subtle differences to BS1377. Looking at Part 1 for example, the minimum masses for the water content test are different to BS1377 (although these now become recommended rather than mandatory) and there are minor reporting differences in the water content result (now required to be reported to one decimal place between 10% and 100% water content). And you will need to remember to now call it “water content” instead of “moisture content”!

Accreditation:

UKAS are already assessing laboratories against the two new Standards for water content and bulk density. Laboratories with existing accreditation to the equivalent BS1377 method can convert their accreditation by a self-declaration, although not many have done so to date. Although the changes are subtle, labs will have to undertake a proper change-management process, including re-training of for the new methods.

UKAS currently believe this self-declaration mechanism should also be applicable to the further Standards as they are published for those labs already accredited to the equivalent BS1377 methods.