Progress on standardisation

The development of European standards for wood-based panels (e.g. particleboards, MDF, plywood and OSB) within the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) was initiated back in 1984 with the creation of Technical Committee 112 ‘Woodbased panels’ under the chairmanship of Prof. Dr. D. Noack.

At that time, few people believed in the benefits of developing European standards for wood-based panels. However, as the wood-based panels industry increasingly had to deal with the internal European market and in the light of a new European regulation for construction products based on standards, the interest in the European standardisation activities on wood-based panels gradually increased. Over the last decade, enormous efforts by the national standards bodies, the industry and the research world have made the unbelievable happen: the European standardisation work on wood-based panels in CEN/112 is nearing completion.

Indeed, of the 76 standards that are at present on the work programme of CEN/TC 112:

• 68 work items, including the “harmonised” standard for wood-based panels for use in construction in the framework of the Construction Products Directive (EN 13986), have reached the stage of a European standard (8 of these published EN standards are currently under revision);
• 3 standards are in the formal vote stage;
• 3 drafts are in preparation at different stages in the working groups;
• work on the 2 remaining items still has to be initiated. One of them is a provisional work item that depends on the outcome of the work of other CEN/TCs, whereas the other one has been created quite recently.

The total number of standards on the work programme has been reduced by 7 for
the following reasons:

• The seven parts of EN 312 “Particleboards – specifications” have been merged into one single standard, which was published in August 2003;
• EN 1084 “Plywood - Formaldehyde release classes determined by the gas analysis method” has been withdrawn, since requirements for sampling and conditioning of test pieces for formaldehyde testing have been included in EN 636;
• The work item to develop a separate specification standard for general purpose non load-bearing particleboards for use in humid conditions was dropped recently, as the publication of EN 312:2003 solved the problems of the producers concerned;
• CEN/TC 112 assumed responsibility of the revision of EN 1058 “Wood-based panels - Determination of characteristic values of mechanical properties and density” State of affairs in CEN/TC 112 (Status May 2004)