Standards Development

Scope

This document describes the functional requirements and methods for verification of performance for protective equipment and systems necessary to guarantee a desired protection level of a hardened protective shelter.

It covers six functional categories of protective equipment needed in a hardened protective shelter:

– Blast protection;

– Gas tightness;

– Tightness of penetrations;

– Ground shock isolation;

– CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear) protection and

– Carbon dioxide (CO2) removal and oxygen (O2) addition.

This document does not cover any other structural parts or auxiliary systems of a shelter, such as

– Shell (walls, roof and floor) of a shelter;

– Heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems;

– Safety and security systems (e.g. locks or fire extinguishing) and

– Other electrical or electronic systems (e.g. lighting and communication).

This document is intended for use by architects and engineers designing hardened protective shelters, industry producing the targeted equipment and procurement organisations in construction industry sourcing such equipment.

Purpose

Market need for a new Technical Specification

The proposed ISO Technical Specification (ISO TS) is a logical continuation of the International Standard ISO 22359 “Security and resilience – Guidelines for hardened protective shelters”, which should be published in 2024. This standard contains basic information about the design, commissioning, use and maintenance of shelters as well as recommendations to the designers and users of them.

ISO 22359 is very useful as a general guideline, which helps planning shelter programmes, adds to the quality of shelter designs and helps managing and maintaining a shelter. However, it does not contain precise and detailed requirements and specifications for any properties, equipment or functions of a shelter. Consequently, this document alone does not deliver all benefits of standardisation to the parties involved in the process of providing shelters for civil protection or other similar purposes.

The demand side (public administrations and other organisations willing to build shelters to protect their citizens or employees) cannot depend on ISO 22359 alone. These developers need to have a certainty that the shelter to be built will be able to protect the occupants against the specified hazards and threats. Therefore, they need a method to assure a required protection level, such as certification of the compliance of the equipment with a standard.

The supply side (shelter protective equipment industry) requires detailed requirements for the performance of their equipment to be able to offer their customers systems that can provide them with a specific level of protection. They also need instructions on how the performance of their products and their compatibility with the requirements can be verified and—if necessary—certified by an accredited body. 

Thirdly, expert organisations (e.g. architects and design engineers) offering design or consultation services to the supply or demand sides also need detailed requirements for the properties and functions of the protective equipment to help them specify the most suitable equipment for the planned shelter. Same applies also to the procurement personnel of the construction industry who need to have detailed specifications for the equipment to be purchased.

Therefore, there is a perceived need for an international Technical Specification that would unify the technical requirements and approval criteria of the shelter protective equipment. This would greatly benefit all parties involved in the process of planning, designing, construction and maintenance of hardened protective shelters by setting clear technical criteria that the customers should demand, and all suppliers of shelter protective equipment should meet with.

Type of standardisation deliverable

Under normal circumstances, the natural and recommended approach would be to start drafting an international standard to address the issues experienced by the above-mentioned stakeholders. However, the demand for shelters is globally growing due to the rapidly tightening geopolitical situation; especially because of the Russian aggression against Ukraine. Other explosive conflict areas include the Middle East and Taiwan. If the divergences between the great powers escalate, the possibility of war increases.

The governments of many countries globally are activating shelter building programmes for protection of civilians in case the conflicts would break out into open armed hostilities. The market needs a document for the specification and selection of shelter protective equipment as soon as possible, and the completion time of an international standard is too long. Therefore, this proposed new work item aims at a Technical Specification, which then later can be upgraded to a full standard.

Relevance to standardization by ISO/TC 292

In general, the proposed TS would match the basic values of standardization: it would help the involved stakeholders to do their work better, it would contribute to higher and uniform quality of products, processes and systems, it would contribute to decreasing costs, it would reduce barriers on global markets, and finally, it would contribute to increasing the level of citizen security during emergencies and disasters.

The proposed TS would fit extremely well in the scope of ISO/TC 292 (“Standardization in the field of security to enhance the safety and resilience of society”). The stakeholders involved in the drafting of the standard represent organizations already participating in the work of the Committee.

The proposed TS matches the Strategic Business Plan of ISO/TC 292 in several ways. It falls in the described Business Environment of the Committee and addresses many of the political, economic, technical, regulatory and social trends described in Sect. 2 of the strategy. It also supports the expected benefits defined in Sect. 3 of the strategy as well as the objectives and strategies defined in Sect. 5 of the strategy.

The natural development environment for the new TS would be ISO/TC 292/WG 10 “Preparedness”, as the WG has already developed ISO 22359. There is a common willingness amongst the WG members to continue the group’s work through the proposed new TS.