Fire safety requirements and tests for railway vehicles in China
In China, fire safety requirements for railway vehicles have basically been taken over from the international standard UIC 564-2 “Regulations relating to fire protection and firefighting measures in passenger carrying railway vehicles or assimilated vehicles used on international services“ and the German standard DIN 5510-2 “Preventive fire protection in railway vehicles - Part 2: Fire behaviour and fire side effects of materials and parts - Classification, requirements and test methods”.
The fire, smoke and toxicity tests were taken over in the Chinese standard TB/T 3237-2010 “Flame retardant technical specification of decorating materials for multiple unit train” implemented on 1 February 2011. The standard is applicable for high-speed trains operating at speeds of over 200 km/h.
The fire tests are the Limiting Oxygen Index test (LOI), the smoke density test (GB/T 8223.2) using the single smoke chamber to ISO 5659-2, as well as the toxicity test to TB/T 3237. The smoke and toxicity requirements are:
Test requirements of GB/T 8323.2 Smoke density
Burning Mode Ds 1.5 Ds 4.0
Without flame ≤100 ≤200
With flame ≤100 ≤200
Test requirements of TB/T 3237 Smoke toxicity
|
Gas |
Reference concentration |
|
|
mg/m3 |
ppm |
|
|
CO |
< 4000 |
3500 |
|
CO2 |
50000 |
|
|
HF |
100 |
|
|
HBr |
100 |
|
|
HCl |
100 |
|
|
NOX |
100 |
|
|
SO2 |
100 |
|
|
HCN |
100 |
|
The fire test for seats was taken over from UIC 564-2 using 100 g of crumpled newspaper as ignition source.
The new European fire tests for railways to EN 45545-2 are not part of the TB/T 3237 standard. It has to be seen how the fire safety requirements for railways in China will develop in the future in light of the growing national and international importance of the Chinese high-speed railway systems